From the
Memoirs of Mr. Schnabelewopsky, Esq
by Heinrich
Heine
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My mother
packed my valise with her own hands. To every shirt there was a piece
of good advice attached. Soon after the laundry ladies had it all
washed away.
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Heinrich Heine
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to
Dawn
Harry
Heine (1797 – 1856) was born when Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the
undisputed doyen of German literature. Once he and Heine even met.
Heine says,
he was walking from Jena to Weimar, Goethe’s domicile, and on the way
plucked a
few plums from trees along the road. Eventually he encountered the
great man
and the first thing that came out of his mouth was, how sweet these
plums had
been. “There I had thought all afternoon
what I should say to Goethe and how to make an impression, and all that
came
out was, that the plums are sweet” (Heine,
The School of the Romantics).
At that
time Heine had already a reputation. His collection of poems was
extremely
popular. So popular in fact, that when a century later the Nazis tried
to purge
Jewish authors from German literature, they didn’t remove the poems
themselves
but changed the name of the author. Heinrich Heine became Mr.
Anonymous. So it
is no surprise when after Goethe’s death many people thought, including
Heine
himself, that he had become – to borrow T.S. Eliot’s phrase – the “king of the cats.” Which he was, he had
tons of talent to burn, despite the fact that there were others, like
Clemens
von Brentano (1778 – 1837) who squandered their talent by the
shiploads.
Heine said about him: “Have you heard of
the tiny Chinese princess who passes all day in her pagoda, tearing to
bits
precious sheets of silk with her long fingernails?”
Heine was
a journalist and showman who never missed a scandal; he would resort to
personal libel and knew how to ruin a reputation. Who would still read
the poet
von Platen or Heine’s compatriot and competitor in exile, Karl Ludwig
Börne
(1786 – 1837), if not for Heine’s brilliantly performed assassinations.
Not everybody approved, but Heine said to his critic: “You
may be right, but isn’t it a piece of superb writing?” Forced
to leave the country, Heine became very “famillionaire”
with Baron Rothschild, and later married a Belgian woman, Mathilda, the
companion of his final years.
In
the terminology of the time, Heine was an “assimilated Jew.” He had
taken the
baptism and changed his first name to “Heinrich.” Yet he was quite
capable to
see Christianity for what it is: "I
am speaking of the religion” he said, “whose
earliest dogmas contain a condemnation of the flesh, and which not
merely
grants the spirit superiority over the flesh but also deliberately
mortifies
the flesh in order to glorify the spirit. I am speaking of the religion
whose
unnatural mission actually introduced sin and hypocrisy into the world,
since just
because of the condemnation of the flesh the most innocent pleasures of
the
senses became a sin and just because of the impossibility of our being
wholly
spirit hypocrisy inevitably developed. I am speaking of the religion,
which
also, due to the doctrine of the evil of earthly passions and the
doctrine that
imposed a dog-like humility and an angelic patience, became the most
reliable
support of tyranny.”
"I do not know whether the
melancholy flower
that we call passion flower in Germany also bears this name in France
and
whether that mystical origin is likewise attributed to it by folk
legend. It is
a strange flower of unpleasing color, in whose chalice can be seen
depicted the
instruments of torture used at the Crucifixion of Christ, namely
hammer, tongs,
nails, etc., a flower that is by no means ugly, only eerie, indeed the
sight of
which even arouses in us an uncanny pleasure like the convulsively
sweet
sensations which result even from suffering itself. In this respect the
flower
would be the most fitting symbol for Christianity, whose most gruesome
attraction consists in this very ecstasy of suffering."
He concluded: "People have now
recognized the nature of
this religion, they will no longer let themselves be fooled by
promissory notes
on Heaven” (Heinrich
Heine, The School of the Romantics). It turned out to be not
only a statement of unwarranted optimism but also an expression of
untested
bravado. When the spirochetes
began attacking
his spinal chord, Heine confessed his apostasy from atheism: “Yes, I have returned to God, like the
prodigal son, after I have farmed the pigs with the students of Hegel
for such
a long time. Was it misery that made me turning back? Perhaps it was a
less
miserable reason. A sudden fit of heavenly nostalgia drove me through
forests
and ravines and over the steepest mountain paths of dialectic
philosophy. Along
the way I met the god of the pantheists, but he was of no use to me.
This poor
and dream stricken being is meshed in and interwoven with the world,
almost
imprisoned in its fabric, and it yawns at you, helpless and with no
will of its
own.”
“To have willpower you need to be
a person,
and in order to exercise it, you need to have your elbows free. Yet if
you ask
for a god who is able to help – and isn’t that all that really matters
– it must be a real person, who is endowed with his holy attributes of
being preternatural, all merciful, all wise, and full of justice.
Immortality
of the soul and the afterlife then go into the bargain as a bonus, just
as the
butcher is shoving a shank into the basket free of charge, as a token
of
satisfaction with his customer. Such a bone, in the language of French
cuisine,
is called “la rejouissance,” and they cook some excellent broths with
it, which
to the poor patient, worn down and ailing, is very nutritious and
invigorating.
That I don’t reject such rejouissance and rather enjoy it with all my
heart
should be acceptable for every man with a bone of compassion in him”
(Heinrich Heine, Romanzero –
Preface)
Matilda, his
wife, was a very down-to-earth woman; when Heine suffered a stroke she
screamed
at him, “Henry, Henry, don’t you dare
dying on me. Today my parrot died, and if you go, what shall become of
me?”
Heine died in exile and is buried in Paris.
michael sympson
Chapter IX
When the pot-roast was particularly bad, we turned to
debating the existence of God. The good Lord always was with the
majority. Only
three at the table held atheistic views; yet they as well listened to
reason if
we had at least a good cheese for dessert. The most zealous theist was
little
Simon, and whenever he debated with the tall Vanpitter the existence of
God, he
sometimes became extremely agitated, paced up and down the room, and
couldn’t
help shouting: “By God, this cannot be
permitted!” The tall Vanpitter, a gaunt man from Friesland, whose
soul
drifted as quietly as the water in a Dutch canal and whose words pulled
along
as steady as a river barge, acquired his arguments from the warehouses
of
German philosophy, which at the time was all the rage in Leiden.
He mocked the narrow-minded people that would attributed to
the good Lord an existence of his own, he even accused them of
blasphemy,
insofar as they depict God as full of wisdom, justice, love and similar
features of human nature, which doesn’t suit him at all, since these
characteristics, in a manner of speaking, are the negation of human
failings
and so had been conceived as the opposite to human stupidity, injustice
and
hatred. Yet when Vanpitter developed his own pantheistic ideas, the fat
Fichtean, a certain Driksen from Utrecht, stepped up against him, and
managed
to give his somewhat vague and all pervasive God, who therefore is
still
existing in space and time, a run for his money; he even asserted, it
would be
already blasphemy to permit the term “existence
of God” as a form of expression, since “existing”
is a concept that demands a certain space, in short something
substantial. In
fact it would be blasphemy to say about God “he is;”
because even in its purest form, “existence” cannot be
imagined outside of the boundaries of the sensual world; so if one
wishes to
think about God one must take away all semblance of substance and one
should
not consider him as a form extended in space. Instead one should think
of an
order of events; God would not be a being, but pure activity, the
underpinning
principle of a metaphysical world-order. These arguments, however,
utterly
enraged the little Simon every single time, and pacing up and down the
room, he
screamed ever more frantically and louder: “Oh
God! By God, this is not permissible; oh God!” I think for the
honor of God
he would have pummeled the fat Fichtean, had his little arms not been
too thin.
There were moments he actually jumped at him; in which case
the fat man took hold of little Simon’s arms, and keeping him steady,
quietly
explained his system without taking his pipe from the mouth, blowing at
his
face tobacco smoke and his rarefied arguments, so that the little
fellow almost
choked from smoke and anger, and imploring for help, whimpered in a
flagging
voice: “Oh God! Oh God!” But God
never came to his aid, although it was a fight for his own cause. Yet
despite
this divine indifference and in spite of this almost human ingratitude
of God,
little Simon remained the staunch champion of theism, and this, I
believe, from
an inborn inclination. Because his forefathers once had been God’s
chosen
people, a people who God had graced with his personal affection, and
who
therefore have preserved a certain attachment to the good Lord.
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The Jews have always been the most obedient theists,
especially those, who, like little Simon, are born in the free city of
Frankfurt. In political matters they may feel as republican as they
please,
even roll in the mire with the French Sans-culottes; yet when religious
ideas
come into play, they remain the subservient retainers of old Jehovah,
this
ancient fetish, although he doesn’t want to be seen in their company
anymore
and has undergone a facelift to become the spirit of pure divinity.
I do believe, this spirit of pure divinity, the latest
parvenu in heaven, who is now coming down on us so full of morality,
cosmopolitanism and universal wisdom, may actually hedge his secret
misgivings
against the poor Jews who still recall the crudity of his previous
manifestation and continue to commemorate in their synagogues him and
his
obscure tribal origin. Maybe the old gentleman no longer wants to know
that his
origin was in Palestine and that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob,
and that his name had been Jehovah.
© –
4/4/2009 – translated by michael sympson, 1,850 words, all rights
reserved
