Stefan Zweig

“ DE PROFUNDIS AT twenty years of age, and again at thirty years of age, in his early works, Rolland had wished to depict enthusiasm as the highest power of the individual and as the creative soul of an entire people. For him, that man alone is truly alive whose spirit is consumed with longing for the ideal, that nation alone is inspired which collects its forces in an ardent faith. The dream of his youth was to arouse a weary and vanquished generation, infirm of will; to stimulate its faith; to bring salvation to the world through enthusiasm. ”

“ We must show him compassion as a man, but as we show compassion to one mentally diseased, for he is the paradox of "a heroic genius with an unheroic will." Beethoven is the hero as artist, and still more the hero as man; Michelangelo is only the hero as artist. As man, Michelangelo is the vanquished, unloved because he does not give himself up to love, unsatisfied because he has no longing for joy. He is the saturnine man, born under a gloomy star, one who does not struggle against melancholy, but rather cherishes it, toying with his own depression. ”

“ Facts alone will speak, with tragical insistence; facts alone will be able to penetrate the thick wall of obstinacy, pride, and falsehood with which men have surrounded their minds because they do not wish to see the light. But we, as between brothers of all the nations; as between those who have known how to defend their moral freedom, their reason, and their faith in human solidarity; as between minds which continue to hope amid silence, oppression, and grief—we do well to exchange, as this year draws to a close, words of affection and solace. ”

“ Courage, like every other power of the soul, must be steeled and tempered by many trials. Among all those of his generation, Rolland had long been signalized as the boldest by his preoccupation with mighty designs. Not merely did he dream, like ambitious schoolboys, of Iliads and pentalogies; he actually created them in the fevered world of to-day, working in isolation, with the dauntless spirit of past centuries. Not one of his plays had been staged, not a publisher had accepted any of his books, when he began a dramatic cycle as comprehensive as Shakespeare's histories. ”

“ We exist to bear its light, to defend its light, to rally round it all the strayed sheep of mankind. Our role, our duty, is to be a center of stability, to point out the pole star, amid the whirlwind of passions in the night. Among these passions of pride and mutual destruction, we make no choice; we reject them all. Truth only do we honor; truth that is free, frontierless, limitless; truth that knows naught of the prejudices of race or caste. Not that we lack interest in humanity. For humanity we work; but for humanity as a whole. We know nothing of peoples. ”

“ In Parsifal, the guileless Fool, by pity enlightened, he recognized an emblem of the artist whose intuition guides him through the world, and who comes to know the world through experience. One evening, as Rolland walked on the Janiculum, the vision of Jean Christophe grew suddenly clear. His hero was to be a pure-hearted musician, a German, visiting other lands, finding his god in Life; a free mortal spirit, inspired with a faith in greatness, and with faith even in mankind, though mankind rejected him. ”

“ Even the free man, "freed from the illusion of fatherland, creed, and race," even he, who seems to have escaped from all the pens, is still enclosed within an ultimate ring of hurdles. He is confined within the limits of his own generation, for generations are the steps of the stairway by which humanity ascends. Every generation builds on the achievements of those that have gone before; here there is no possibility of retracing our footsteps; each generation has its own laws, its own form, its own ethic, its own inner meaning. ”

“ The blood of his fathers drives him along, out of an infinite of confused origins, towards that other infinite of creation. Those whom he encounters in his life's journey are no more than shadows and intimations, milestones of experience, steps of ascent and descent, episodes and adventures. But what is knowledge other than a sum of experiences; what is life beyond a sum of encounters? Other human beings are not Jean Christophe's destiny, but they are material for his creative work. They are elements of the infinite, to which he feels himself akin. ”

“ But action is force, struggle is blood. His gentle spirit desires peace; his moral will craves for the right. The youth has within him both a Hamlet and a Saint-Just, both a vacillator and a zealot. He is a wraithlike double of Olivier, already able to reckon up all values. The goal of Aërt's youthful passion is still indeterminate; this passion is nothing but a flame which wastes itself in words and aspirations. He does not make the deed come at his beckoning; but the deed takes possession of him, dragging the weakling down with it into the depths whence there is no other issue than by death. ”

“ Once again he plunges into the solitude of a wakeful night. Men's words have sounded empty. He listens to his conscience, and it speaks with the voice of his son. Truth knocks at the door of his soul, and he opens to truth. In this lonely night Clerambault begins to speak to his fellows; no longer to individuals, but to all mankind. For the first time the man of letters becomes aware of the poet's true mission, his responsibility for all persons and for everything. He knows that he is beginning a new war, he who alone must wage war for all. ”

“ The grief at all this suffering, the heartrending sympathetic anguish with the millions of sufferers. I feel a moral death-struggle as I look on at this mad humanity which is offering up its most precious possessions, its energies, its genius, its ardors of heroic devotion, which is sacrificing all these things to the murderous and stupid idols of war. I am heartbroken at the absence of any divine message, any divine spirit, any moral leadership, which might upbuild the City of God when the carnage is at an end. The futility of my whole life has reached its climax. ”

“ He does not think of those who lead the masses, wage victorious wars, kindle revolutions; he does not refer to men of action, or to those whose thoughts engender action. The nullity of united action has become plain to him. Unconsciously in his dramas he has depicted the tragedy of the idea as something which cannot be divided among men like bread, as something which in each individual's brain and blood undergoes prompt transformation into a new form, often into its very opposite. True greatness is for him to be found only in solitude, in struggle waged by the individual against the unseen. ”

“ With words alone we can build nothing but a house of cards. "Truth is the same to all nations, but each nation has its own lies which it speaks of as its idealism. Every member of each nation inhales the appropriate atmosphere of lying idealism from the cradle to the grave, until it becomes the very breath of his life. None but isolated geniuses can free themselves by heroic struggle, during which they stand alone in the free universe of their own thought." We must free ourselves from prejudice if we are to judge freely. ”

“ It is our duty to build the walls of this city ever higher and stronger, that it may dominate the injustice and the hatred of the nations. Then shall we have a refuge wherein the brotherly and free spirits from out all the world may assemble." This faith in a lofty ideal soars like a sea-mew over the ocean of blood. Rolland is well aware how little hope there is that his words can make themselves audible above the clamor of thirty million warriors. "I know that such thoughts have little chance of being heard to-day. I do not speak to convince. I speak only to solace my conscience. ”

“ As one of the greatest (Tolstoi) has said, 'I recognize no other sign of superiority than goodness. Where the character is not great, there is neither a great artist nor a great man of action; there is nothing but one of the idols of the crowd; time will shatter them together.... What matters, is to be great, not to seem great.'"
A hero does not fight for the petty achievements of life, for success, for an idea in which all can participate; he fights for the whole, for life itself. Whoever turns his back on the struggle because he dreads to be alone, is a weakling who shrinks from suffering ”

“ The man who has foreseen the essential problem of a whole civilization, of a disastrous epoch, must of necessity, in the decisive hour, play a leading part. He only who had contemplated the coming European war as an abyss towards which the mad hunt of recent decades, making light of every warning, had been speeding, only such a one could command his soul, could refrain from joining the bacchanalian rout, could listen unmoved to the throbbing of the war drums. Who but such a man could stand upright in the greatest storm of illusion the world has ever known? ”

“ Once more, as of old, he wishes to unite the invisible community of the free. "I feel the same joy when I find the fragile and valiant flowers of human pity piercing the icy crust of hatred that covers Europe, as we feel in these chilly March days when we see the first flowers appear above the soil. They show that the warmth of life persists below the surface, and that soon nothing will prevent its rising again." Undismayed he continues on his "humble pélérinage," endeavoring "to discover, beneath the ruins, the hearts of those who have remained faithful to the old ideal of human brotherhood. ”

“ Such is the environment in which Rolland places Aërt, the young prince, heir to vanished greatness. This Holland is, of course, symbolical of the Third Republic. Fruitless attempts are made, by the temptations of loose living, by various artifices, by the instilling of doubt, to break the captive's faith in greatness, to undermine the one power that still sustains the debile body and the suffering soul. The hypocrites of his entourage do their utmost, with luxury, frivolity, and lies, to wean him from what he considers his high calling, which is to prove himself worthy heir of a glorious past. ”

“ Creation alone is life. "There is only one delight, that of creation. Other joys are but shadows, alien to the world though they hover over the world. Desire is creative desire; for love, for genius, for action. One and all are born out of ardor. It matters not whether we are creating in the sphere of the body or in the sphere of the spirit. Ever, in creation, we are seeking to escape from the prison of the body, to throw ourselves into the storm of life, to be as gods. To create is to slay death." ”

“ Of the four completed revolutionary dramas, Le 14 Juillet stands first in point of historic time. Here we see the Revolution as one of the elements of nature. No conscious thought has formed it; no leader has guided it. Like thunder from a clear sky comes the aimless discharge of the tensions that have accumulated among the people. The thunderbolt strikes the Bastille; the lightning flash illumines the soul of the entire nation. This piece has no heroes, for the hero of the play is the multitude. "Individuals are merged in the ocean of the people," writes Rolland in the preface. ”

“ While Rolland almost always chooses an artist for his hero, he does not make this choice in the arrogance of the romance writer who likes to contrast the melancholy genius with the dull crowd. His aim is to draw nearer to the primal problems of existence. In the work of art, transcending time and space, the eternal miracle of generation out of nothing (or out of the all) is made manifest to the senses, while simultaneously its mystery is made plain to the intelligence. For Rolland, artistic creation is the problem of problems precisely because the artist is the most human of men. ”

“ Mankind demands of us that those who love their fellows should take a firm stand, and should even fight, if needs must, against those they love."
For five years we have watched the heroism of this fight, pursuing its own course amid the warring of the nations. We have watched the miracle of one man's keeping his senses amid the frenzied millions, of one man's remaining free amid the universal slavery of public opinion. We have watched love at war with hate, the European at war with the patriots, conscience at war with the world. ”

“ Yet this man, sprung from the Burgundian peasantry, has an armor to protect him from the bludgeonings of fate, armor no less effectual than was the invincible German optimism of Jean Christophe or the inviolable faith of Olivier. Breugnon has his imperturbable cheerfulness. "Sorrows never prevent my laughing; and when I laugh, I can always weep at the same time." Epicure, gormandizer, deep drinker, ever ready to leave work for play, he is none the less a stoic when misfortune comes, an uncomplaining hero in adversity. When his house burns, he exclaims: "The less I have, the more I am." ”

“ Between Olivier and his son Georges lies an abyss like that which separates two worlds, and Olivier is delighted that his son should regard him with contempt. The abyss is an abyss of twenty years.
Life must eternally express itself in new forms; it refuses to allow itself to be dammed up by outworn thoughts, to be hemmed in by the philosophies and religions of the past; in its headstrong progress it sweeps accepted notions out of its way. Each generation can understand itself alone; it transmits a legacy to unknown heirs who will interpret and fulfill as seems best to them. ”

“ ENVOY STRANGE has been the rhythm of this man's life, surging again and again in passionate waves against the time, sinking once more into the abyss of disappointment, but never failing to rise on the crest of faith renewed. Once again we see Romain Rolland as prototype of those who are magnificent in defeat. Not one of his ideals, not one of his wishes, not one of his dreams, has been realized. Might has triumphed over right, force over spirit, men over humanity. ”

“ MICHELANGELO BEETHOVEN is for Rolland the most typical of the controllers of sorrow. Born to enjoy the fullness of life, it seemed to be his mission to reveal its beauties. Then destiny, ruining the senseorgan of music, incarcerated him in the prison of deafness. But his spirit discovered a new language; in the darkness he made a great light, composing the Ode to Joy whose strains he was unable to hear. Bodily affliction, however, is but one of the many forms of suffering which the heroism of the will can conquer. "Suffering is infinite, and displays itself in myriad ways. ”

“ Often he grows weary, wondering whether struggle must indeed be unending, asking himself with Job whether his days be not "like the days of an hireling." But soon, shaking off lethargy, he recognizes that "we cannot be truly alive while we continue to ask why we live; we must live life for its own sake." He knows that labor is its own reward. In an hour of illumination he sums up his destiny in the splendid phrase: "I do not seek peace; I seek life."
But struggle implies the use of force. Despite his natural kindliness of disposition, Jean Christophe is an apostle of force. ”

“ His soul which, thirsting for music, has long been eagerly drinking in its strains, now flows forth creatively over the barriers into the world.
This inborn daimon in the artist grows with the child, ripens with the man, and ages as the man grows old. Like a vampire it is nourished by all the experiences of its host, drinking his joys and his sorrows, gradually sucking up all the life into itself, so that for the creative human being nothing more remains but the eternal thirst and the torment of creation. ”

“ But as soon as Jean Christophe begins to love Italy, he grows afraid of this love. He realizes that Italy is also essential to him, in order that in his music and in his life the impetuosity of the senses shall be clarified to a perfect harmony. He understands how necessary the southern world is to the northern, and is now aware that only in the trio of Germany, France, and Italy does the full meaning of each voice become clear. In Italy, there is less illusion and more reality; but the land is too beautiful, tempting to enjoyment and killing the impulse towards action. ”

“ Tolstoi contemned the Ariel of the soul as a seducer to sensuality. What was to be done? The young man's heart was racked. Was he to follow the sage of Yasnaya Polyana, to cut away from his life all will to art; or was he to follow the innermost call which would lead him to transfuse the whole of his life with music and poesy? He must perforce be unfaithful, either to the most venerated among artists, or to art itself; either to the most beloved among men or to the most beloved among ideas. ”

“ Suffering does not suffice by itself to produce greatness; we need to have achieved a triumph over suffering. He who is broken by the distresses of life, and still more he who shirks the troubles of life, is stamped with the imprint of defeat, and even his noblest work will bear the marks of this overthrow. None but he who rises from the depths, can bring a message to the heights of the spirit ”

“ Just as Dante, guided by Virgil, wanders through new and ever new circles of knowledge, so Jean Christophe, led by Olivier, learns with astonishment that behind this veil of noise, behind this clamorous façade, an elite is quietly laboring. He sees the work of persons whose names are never printed in the newspapers; sees the people, those who, remote from the hurly-burly, tranquilly pursue their daily round. He learns to know the new idealism of the France whose soul has been strengthened by defeat. ”