Books: My Life and My Efforts

K >> Karl May >> My Life and My Efforts

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

While considering these thoughts in my mind, I felt very well that
I, by carrying them out, would put myself in a danger which was
not to be taken lightly. What if this fictional self would not be
understood and the meaning of this "first person narrator" would
not be comprehended? What if they would believe that I was
referring to myself? Was is not obvious that everybody who lacked
the intelligence or good will to distinguish between fiction and
reality, would call me a liar and a swindler? Yes, this was
indeed possible, but I did not regard it as probable. After all,
I had to equip this "first person narrator", this Kara Ben Nemsi
or Old Shatterhand, with all of the good attributes which mankind
had achieved up until this day in the course of its development.
My hero had to possess the highest intelligence, the deepest
heart, and the greatest skillfulness in all physical exercises.
Did it not go entirely without saying that in reality, this could
never all be found in a single human being! And if I, as I
intended to do, would write a series of thirty to forty volumes,
it could certainly be presumed, that no reasonable man would get
the idea, that a single person could have experienced all this.
No! The accusation that I was a liar and a swindler was, at least
for people who think, entirely impossible! This was how I
thought then. Yes, I was even firmly convinced that, though I did
not describe myself in this "first person narrator", I could
nevertheless maintain with a clear conscience that I had
experienced or witnessed the contents of these narrations myself,
because they were taken from my own life or at least from my
closest environment. It was not at all difficult on me, but
rather very easy, and most of all also interesting, to imagine
that though Karl May writes those traveller's tales down, he does
it in such a way, as if they were not the product of his own mind,
but as if they were dictated to him by this fictional "first
person", which is the great question of mankind. Whether this
assumption of mine was right, the future will soon show.

The intention to give some of my characters native American and
some of them oriental features led me quite naturally to a deep
sympathy for the fate of those peoples. The extinction of the red
race, which had been described as unstoppable, started to occupy
my mind constantly. And about the ingratitude of the occident
against the orient, to which it owes its entire material and
mental culture, I had all kinds of serious thoughts. The welfare
of mankind demands that there shall be peace between the two, no
more exploitation and bloodshed. I was resolved to constantly
emphasise this in my books and to kindle in my readers the love
for the red race and for the inhabitants of the orient which we
owe them as fellow human beings. These days, I am assured that I
have not just achieved this in a few, but in hundreds of
thousands, and I am inclined to believe this.

And now here is the main question: For whom were my books meant
to be written? Quite naturally for the people, for the entire
people, not just for single parts of it, for single classes, for
single age-groups. Most of all, they were not solely meant for
the young people! I have to put the greatest weight and the
sharpest emphasis on this latter statement. If it had been my
intention to be or to become an author for young people, I would
quite necessarily have had to give up on executing all of my plans
and on achieving all of my ideals for ever. And to do this, has
never crossed my mind. It is true that I also had to think of the
young generation, because they form, not just in a temporal sense,
the first stage of the people; they are not just the ones who
constantly replenish the people, but they are also the ones who
will have to lead the way in the uplifting of mankind for the old
and the lazy, to occupy the the terrain, discovered by our
pioneers, at the quickest pace. But just as they only form a part
of the people, this with what I had to address them could also be
just a part of what I wrote for the people as a whole. When I say
that I wanted to write for the people, I mean mankind in general,
no matter how young or how old they may be. But not every one of
my books is meant for every person. And yet again, it is for
every person, but one after another, depending on whether he
develops forward, depending on how much older and more experienced
he has become, depending on whether he has gained the ability to
understand and to comprehend their contents. My books shall
accompany him through his entire life. He shall read them as a
boy, a youth, an adult, an old man, at every one of these ages, he
shall read what corresponds with the level of experience he has
gained. He shall do all this slowly, with thoughtfulness and
consideration. He who reads my books indiscriminately and too
quickly, is perhaps to be pitied; but at any rate, it is even
more of a pity for them! He who abuses them, shall not hold me or
them responsible, but only himself. Let me just remind you of
smoking, of eating and drinking. Smoking is an indulgence of
pleasure. Eating and drinking is a necessity. But to smoke, to
eat, to drink anytime, and to smoke and to devour everything
available, would not just be foolish, but even harmful. Good,
interesting literature shall be savoured, but not be devoured like
by a shark! Since my books contain nothing but parables and
fables, it goes without saying that the reader is supposed to
think about them thoroughly and that they only belong into the
hand of people, who are not just able to think about something,
but also willing to do so.

At this time, when I had considered these ideas and made my plans,
I had already written and published various things, but I would
not have dared to call myself an novelist or even an artist yet.
And does not every real novelist have to be an artist as well. I
did not even regard myself as a proper apprentice in this
business, but only as a beginner, who is not a part of this
business, but just groping his way, like a child trying to take
his first steps. And in spite of this all, I already made plans,
covering so much ground, extending so far into the future!
Looking over these plans, I ought to have become pretty scared,
because undoubtedly, it had to take several men's lives full of
work, without disturbances, and without misfortune, to cope with
this task I was facing in a genuinely literary, which is to say
artistic, fashion. But still, I did not become scared, I rather
remained very calm through all of this. I was asking myself: Is
it really necessary to be a novelist, and to be an artist, to be
allowed to write these kinds of things? Who would want and who
could forbid someone to do it? Let's do it without the
established world of literature, if it will only turn out right!
And let's do it without art, if it will only have its effect and
achieves what it is supposed to achieve! Whether novelists and
artists would accept me as a "colleague", I had to ignore then.
Though, I had my individual pride just as anybody else, and I had
the highest possible opinion of art. But these thoughts of mine
were different than other people's thoughts, especially those of
my fellow authors. To be an artist, stuck me as being the highest
thing to be on earth, and deeply within my heart, there lived the
ardent wish to reach these heights, even if it should not be until
the final hour before my death. That night when I got to see the
"Faust" as a child, still lived unforgotten in my soul, and the
resolutions I had made under its impression still possessed the
very same willpower and the same hold over me as before. To write
for the theatre! To write dramas! Dramas, which show how man
shall and can rise up from the sufferings of earth to the joys of
existence, from the slavery of the low urges to the purity and
greatness of the soul. To be able to write something like this,
it is necessary to an artist, not just any artist, but a genuine
and true one. But all of my conceptions of art were something
entirely different than this what today's critics describe as art;
and thus I was left with no other choice than to postpone all of
my wishes, which concerned me being allowed to be an artist in
literature, an artist who is a true, valuable artist, for many,
many long years and to remain until then what I was at the time, a
beginner, who is not a part of the established business, and who
made no pretension to becoming a member of it. As I had always
been, as long as I had lived, by myself and lonely, I was already
then convinced, that my path as an author would also be a lonely
one up to the end of my life. What I was looking for, could not
be found in daily life. What I wanted was something absolutely
beyond a common person. And what I deemed right, was most
probably wrong for other people. Furthermore, I could not forget
that I was a convicted criminal. Therefore, to stay entirely to
myself and not to bother any more valuable people with my
presence, seemed to be the natural thing to do. I was no expert
on art. Perhaps, the others were right; I could be mistaken. In
any case, my ideal kept me going: In the end of my life, once I
was fully matured, a great, beautiful work of poetry was to be
created, a symphony of redeeming thoughts, in which I ventured to
produce light out of my darkness, happiness out of my misfortune,
joy out of my torment. This was for later, when death will first
announce his presence. But for now, my job was to learn, to learn
a lot and to prepare myself for this great project, so that it
would not fail. Now, I would write fables and parables, in order
to extract the truth and the reality out of them in the end of my
life and to put these onto the stage!

But these parables are not short texts like, for example, those
wonderful parables of Christ, but long narratives, in which many
characters appear and act out their parts. And they are numerous;
they were meant to fill a large number of volumes and supply the
material for that other great task, later on, with which I want to
conclude my work. Thus, they cannot be carefully executed
paintings, but only pen-and-ink drawings, only sketches, first
exercises, etudes [a], which must not be measured by those
standards which only apply to genuine works of art. I am neither
able, nor willing, nor allowed to be another Paul Heyse [b], who
has achieved perfection in this art, but rather my task is to
chisel crude blocks of marble and alabaster from highly situated
quarries, to be used in subsequent works of art, the shape of
which I cannot more than hint, because the time to create them is
not yet available to me. I give these very hints in these fables,
which are interjected into my narrative parables and form the
spots on which the interest of the reader is concentrated.
Therefore, art critics do not need to deal with my traveller's
tales, because it is not my intention at all to give them an
artistic form or even perfection. They have to be like the
simple, plain arm- and foot-bracelets of the Arabian women, which
are meant to be nothing more than silver rings. Their value is in
the metal, not in the work. A painter, hastily drawing sketches
in preparation for a great painting, would surely be astonished by
a critic, measuring these sketches by the same standards, he would
then later have to use on the painting.

[a] etudes: studies, exercises (French)
[b] Paul Heyse (1830-1914) won the Nobel Prize for literature in
1910.

This is all I want to say right now about these plans, which
formed within me at this time and from which I did not depart and
which I have carried out up until this day. They did not appear
suddenly, and they did not appear all at once, but slowly, one
after another. And they did not mature quickly, but it took
months and years, until I had fully decided on one aspect after
another. But I also had enough time for this. I have made a kind
of agenda of my plans and their execution; I have kept it as a
sacred treasure and still possess it today. Every thought was
dissected into its parts, and every one of these parts was written
down. I even made a directory of the titles and the contents of
all these traveller's tales, I wanted to tell. Though I did not
precisely go by this directory, it was nevertheless very useful to
me, and I still benefit today from topics which had already then
taken form within me. I also wrote busily; I wrote manuscripts,
to have as much material as possible, to be published right after
my release. In short, I was enthusiastic about my project and,
though I was a prisoner, I felt infinitely happy about the
prospects for a future, which promised to become an not entirely
ordinary one, as it seemed I had every reason to hope.

Destiny seemed to agree with my intentions. It granted me, as if
it wanted to compensate me for all the suffering, a rich, highly
welcome gift: I was pardoned. The warden's office had applied
for clemency on my behalf, due to which my prison term was reduced
by a full year. My conduct was evaluated with the highest mark
and I received an attestation of my trustworthiness, which eased
my way back into life outside and spared me from all kinds of
trouble with the police. He who knows about these things, will be
able to appreciate what this means!

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, when I left the institution,
armed with my manuscripts to fight the obstacles of life. I had
written home, to inform my family about my return. How was I
looking forward to this reunion. I had no reason to be afraid of
accusations; this had already been settled in letters. I knew
that I was welcome and that I would not get to hear a single word
which would hurt me. Most of all, I was looking forward to seeing
grandmother. How much must she have worried and grieved! And how
much would she want to extend her old, dear, faithful hand to me.
How delighted would she be about my plans! How much would she
help me to carry them out and to get as much as possible out of
them! I went from Zwickau to Ernstthal, this was precisely the
way I had gone that time as a boy, to seek help in Spain. You can
imagine what thoughts accompanied me on this way. On that way
home with my father, I had promised myself never to sadden him
with something like this again; but how badly had I kept my word!
Should I make similar resolutions today, the fulfilment of which
could never be guaranteed due to the powerlessness of man? The
"fable of Sitara" appeared before me. Could it be that I was one
of those whose souls were received at birth by the devil, to be
hurled into misery, so that they would be lost? All resistance
and rebelling is useless; they are doomed. Does this apply to me
as well?

My thoughts became more and more gloomy, the closer I came to my
home. I felt, as if evil premonitions were coming at me from this
direction. It seemed as if my joyful confidence was trying to
leave me; I had to try hard to hold on to it. From the
Lungwitzer hill, I looked over the small town. There before my
very eyes, were those winding paths, I used to walk so often,
while desperately struggling with those frightful inner voices,
calling out to me day and night without pausing these words: "the
tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse". And what
was that? While thinking of it, I heard the very same voices
echoing within me, very clearly, as I used to, only from a far,
but they seemed to get closer, "the tailor's curse, the tailor's
curse, the tailor's curse!" Was this supposed and willing to
start all over again? A sudden fear came over me, a fear as I had
never felt before, and I hurried away from this place, away from
this memory, down the hill, through the town, home, home, home!

I arrived sooner than I had been expected. My parents still lived
on the first floor of the same house. I walked up one flight of
stairs and then another to the attic, where grandmother had always
liked spending her time the most. I wanted to see her first and
only then father, mother, and the sisters. Then, I saw the few
things she had owned; but she was not there. There was her
chest, with blue and yellow flowers painted on it. It was locked,
the key was not in the lock. And there was her bed; it was
empty. I rushed downstairs into the living-room. There sat my
parents. The sisters were absent. They were considerate. They
had thought, the parents had the right to go first. I did not
even greet them, but asked where grandmother was. "Dead - - -
deceased!" was the answer. "When?" "Last year." Hearing this, I
fell onto a chair and lay my head and arms on the table. She was
no longer alive! It had been kept from me, to spare me, to avoid
making the imprisonment even harder on me. These might have been
rather good intentions; but now it hit me just the more
powerfully. She had not been really sick; she had just simply
pined away, because of the grief and suffering for - - - me!

It took a long time, before I rose my head again, in order to
greet the parents now. They were startled. Later, they told me
that my face had looked worse than that of a corpse. The sisters
joined us. They were happy about the reunion, but they looked at
me so strangely, so timidly. This was nothing else but a
reflection of my own face. Though I tried my best, I could still
not fully conceal the blow which had just hit me. I wanted to
know only things about grandmother for now, nothing else, and they
told me. She had talked a lot about me, but never a single word
which would necessarily have offended me, if I had been present.
And she had never complained or even wept. She had said that now
she knew that I was one of those souls which had been hurled over
to the wrong side at their births, to be destroyed there. Now,
she was convinced that I had to go through the spirits' furnace,
to suffer all the torment of earth. But she knew that I would not
scream, I would bear what I had to bear, and force my way up to
Jinnistan. The closer she came to death, the more exclusively she
only lived in her world of fairy-tales, and the more exclusively
she talked about nothing else but me. On one of her final days,
she said that the cantor, who had died a long time before, had
been with her that night. He had been our neighbour. Those two
houses were connected. Then, she said, the wall had suddenly
opened in the darkness and a bright light had filled the room, but
it was no ordinary light, but rather a light she had never seen
before. Lit by this light, the cantor had appeared. He had
looked just as he used to when he was still alive. Slowly, he had
come up to her bed, had greeted her with a friendly smile, as he
had always done, and then, he had said that she should not worry
about me at all; I might very well fall as anybody else, but I
could not stay down; I would be given a hard time, but I would
surely reach my goal. Having said these words, he again nodded at
her in his friendly manner and left just as slowly as he had come,
back trough the gap in the wall. It closed behind him. The light
disappeared; it became dark again.

After she had told this, it had been as if a part of this unknown,
previously unfamiliar light was still reflected by her face, and
it was still in her features, once she had closed her eyes and
stopped breathing. Her death had been soft, peaceful, blissful;
but I was not feeling peaceful and blissful at all, when I was
told about it. Recriminations formed within me, but none of the
kind which are mere thoughts, like in other people who do not have
the same tendencies as I, but recriminations of a much more
essential, much more compact kind. I saw them coming up within
me, and I heard what they said, every word, yes really, every
word! This were not thoughts, but characters, genuine beings,
which did not seem to have anything in common with me, and yet
they were identical with me. What a puzzle! But what an unusual,
terribly frightening puzzle! They were like dark characters which
used to scream inside of me in the past, which I had - - - my God,
as soon as I had thought of them, they were back, just as I used
to be forced to see and hear them inside of me. I heard their
voices as clearly, as if they were standing in front of me and
were talking to me instead of my parents and sisters. And the
stayed. When I went to bed, they lay down to sleep with me. But
they did not sleep and did not let me sleep either. It started
again, the former misery, the former torture, the former fight
with these incomprehensible powers, which were just the more
dangerous, since I could not discover at all, whether they were
parts of myself or not. They seemed to be it, because they knew
every one of my thoughts, even before I grew fully aware of them
myself. And yet, they could not possibly be a part of me, because
what they wanted was almost always the opposite of my own wishes.
I had put an end to my past. The part of my life which was still
to come was supposed to be entirely different from the part I had
left behind. But those voices were trying hard to drag me back
into the past with all of their might. As before, the demanded
that I should seek revenge. Now more than ever, I was to seek
revenge for the precious time I had lost in prison! They grew
louder day by day; but I resisted them; I pretended to hear
nothing, nothing at all. But even using the greatest strength, I
could not stand this for more than a few days. In the meantime, I
visited a few publishers, to negotiate the publication of the
manuscripts, I had written in prison, with them. In doing so, it
turned out that during my absence, the voices within me became
just the more silent, the further I went from home, and became
more clearly again, the closer I came to my home again. It was as
if those dark characters resided there and could only attack me,
whenever I was so imprudent to go there. I decided to put this to
the test. I took the pay for my stories and made a longer trip
abroad. Where I went, I will have to tell in the second volume of
this work, in which I am planning to devote more space to my
travels and their results than I could spare here. During this
journey, these images disappeared entirely; I became completely
free of them. But instead, an very unusual compulsion to return
home came over me. This was no healthy, but a sick urge; I felt
this very well, but it grew so strong that I lost my power to
resist and gave in to it. I returned home, and as soon as I was
there, everything I thought I had done away with came over me
again as violently as ever. The struggle started anew.
Incessantly, I heard the order inside of me, to seek revenge
against human society by violating its laws. I felt that, if I
should obey this order, I would be a most dangerous person and
gathered up all of my strength to fight against this horrible
fate.

I consider it necessary to state here that I did not regard my
condition as pathological at all. All of my ancestors, as far as
I knew them, had been both physically and mentally thoroughly
healthy people. There was nothing atavistic in me. This which
had attached itself to me in this respect had surely not been
generated inside of me, but had come over me from outside. I
worked busily, almost day and night, as I had generally always
found my greatest joy in my work. My stories were eagerly bought.
So, I was suffering no need at all, especially since I lived with
my parents, which were now also better off than they used to be.
Even if I had earned nothing for myself, I would have had all I
needed to live. During this work was repeated what I had already
described before. Whenever I wrote something ordinary, I was not
obstructed in the least. But as soon as I turned to a higher
topic, a mentally, religiously, or ethically more valuable task,
forces stirred inside of me, which rebelled against this and kept
me from performing my work by interjecting the most trivial, most
stupid, or even most illegal thoughts, while I was writing. I was
not supposed to rise up; I was supposed to stay down. They were
joined by an old, very well known scoundrel, whom nobody may
trust, no matter how much flattery he may use; I am talking about
thirst. A disgust for liquor is part of my nature; if I drink it
at all, it is only as a medicine. Wine had been out of my reach
up until now, if for nothing else than for the price, and I also
by no means have that kind of a liking for beer which one must
have, to become an alcoholic. But now, strangely, I always felt a
strong thirst, whenever I passed by an inn on my walks, and also
in the evening, when others had finished their work, the desire
came over me to put down the pen and to go to the bar, as they
did. But I did not do it. Father did it. He could not very well
do without his glass of simple beer and his smaller glass of hard
liquor. But I did not feel like it and stayed at home. This was
by no means a sacrifice for me and was not hard on me, oh no. I
am only telling this, because it is psychologically interesting,
since it strikes me as rather strange that this thirst for
alcoholic beverages, which is so contrary to my entire nature and
is otherwise so completely unknown to me, only appeared whenever
those voices had the upper hand within me, but never at any other
time!

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23