TE23 Double Feature

Anne Weber

Fatherland

the unspiritual lives they lead. He suffers from his own so frightfully grave nature which makes him suited neither to teaching (though as a clergyman he’s supposed to do that) nor to being a village pastor. He’s bird , he’s phoenix , he’s man of the hereafter : does it make any sense to expect this temporal realm to resemble that realm? For he finds himself surrounded by a world that is entirely profane. The vague hereafter that sometimes shines forth for him, that he craves and divines but which repeatedly evades him, of that he finds no trace in the eyes of the others, in their gestures, in the soulless treadmill of their daily tasks. Least of all in those who, by virtue of office, status and religion, are closest to him: the normal Prussian Christians , his German brothers in faith who have nothing brotherly about them. He’s a stranger among them. There’s no one he could make feel or at least understand his anguish, even if he could capture it in words. No one in whom a similar rift might 152

have opened up. Toward the end of his time in the east, he is, though no one besides him has been struck by it, alone. From morning to night he wears his iron mask. No one supports him because no one sees his distress. The only person who suspects anything, benevolent old Heskekiel, has nothing more than compassion to offer him. And, without wanting to, pushes him further still into solitude and despair. Since no help can be expected from the living, Sanderling seeks support among the dead, whose living voices talk to him. I conferred with Goethe. Not something every soul in need can say of themselves. But why shouldn’t someone who talks to God and wishes to call him to account not also confer with Goethe? He also talks with Nietzsche, but in that case it just feels to him like a soliloquy. Neither the dead nor the living can alleviate his distress. He is at a loss. I was like a pause in my own being.

During this period a conference takes place 153