VIRGO-VIRAGO? WERNER BERGENGRUEN’S NOVELLE IUNGFRAULZCHKEIT

BY MARY ALEXANDER

’DIE Kunst ist zu nichts brauchbar’,l writes Werner Bergengruen, quoting Eichendorff, and elaborating later, ‘die Dichtung hat Impulse, aber keine Zwecke und keine Absichten, weder ethische noch rnoralische’.* This may be taken as a measure of Bergengruen’s regard for art, yet he achicves staturc as a writer because a consistent philosophy does run through his mature works.

Ironically, it is just because Bergengruen is a writer with a pronounced message that critics find it difficult to assess him as an artist: many of them are so tied up with the Christian philosophy of his writings (so overtly displayed in his poetry and so subtly suggested in his best narrative works) that they seem unable to judge them on aesthetic grounds. As it is, the majority of those who write about Bergengruen’s prose works are interested in Bergengruen the thinker, and neglect Bergengruen the artist. And, curiously, this kind of attitude leads not only to misjudgements of Bergen- gruen’s artistry, which might be expected, but also to misunderstandings of his theme or message, which might not. An interesting example of this kind of failure in literary criticism is the attempt at an interpretation of Bergen- gruen’s Novelle]Irngf~~lichkeif by the American scholar, W. A. Willibrand.3

It is true that this Novelle does present certain difficulties and has been shunned by Bergengruen scholars. The religious setting and the heroine’s being a nun tend to confuse critics furthcr : Bergengruen writes :

Bei der ]trngfi;iIrli&keit mag die Schwierigkeit darin liegen, dass sie u m ihres klosterlichen Schauplatzes willen fur eine Novelle mit primar religiosem Motiv gehalten werden kann. Und doch mochte ich ein solches nicht fur sie in Anspruch nehnien.4

The story of 1idngfr;itrlichkeit is simple in outline. Margarethe Kampehl, daughter of a patrician family in medieval Reval, kills a young nobleman who tries to rape her. Although uiiconditioiially acquitted by the court, she enters a convent and has the idea of devoting the rest of her life to atonement, though without being sure what form her atonement is to take. In her seventh year in the convent a Russian army ravages the country. Most of the nuns flee, but Margarethe at her own suggestion is left behind in charge of the aged and sick. She feels that the momcnt of her atonement is at hand, and believes at first that it is to take the form of her willing surrender to a man. But realising at the last moment what her true course should be, when a Russian soldier is about to rape her she pretends that she has a magic power

~~~

V I R G O - V I R A G o ? B E R G E N G R U E N’ s ‘ J u N G F R A u LI c H KE I T ’ 207

which makes her immune to injury, so that he may be tricked into killing her.

Willibrand’s rigid notion of the religious and ethical content to be expected in a Bergengruen story leads hiin to argue that in the ‘secularity’ of its theme ]ungfuulichkeit represents a move away from Bcrgengruen’s centre. But though Willibrand himself describes Bergengruen as ‘Christian in orientation though not a religious writer in a limited sense’,5 throughout his article he places a narrower interpretation on ‘religious’ than can properly be applied to Bergengruen’s works. Bergengruen describes himself as ‘ein christlicher Heide’,6 and his deeply religious outlook is not absolutely identical with Christian dogma. Willibrand, from what seems to be a Roman Catholic point of view, misjudges the aesthetic and the thematic quality of]ungfuulichkeit. He cannot see the sacred wood for the trees.

Willibrand’s article derives its principal interest from being a three-cornered discussion betweenwillibrand, Ida Bentz7and Bergengruen himself, who here follows his tenet of discussing his own works as if they were someone else’s.*

Willibrand would like to see Bergengruen’s Jclngfruirlichkeir as ‘one of those themes foreign to his religious faith’. Bergengruen, in his letter to Willibrand of 3 December 1950, points towards the irrelevancy of such an approach :

Was Ihre Fragen nach einigen Einzelheiten der j u n g j h l i c h k e i t angeht, so ware meiner Auffassung nach der Hauptnachdruck wohl darauf zu legen, dass die Handlung dieser Novelle etwas wie cinen Sonderfall darstellt. Ich glaube, man musste ihn primar linter kunstlerischen Gesichtspunkten sehen und eincr moralischen odcr auch nur ini modernen Sinnc psychologischen Betrachtungsweise nicht zu vie1 Raum geben.

Thus Bergengruen, hinting clearly that Willibrand’s psychological angle is not the appropriate one, stresses that artistic considerations should be para- mount in an examination of this story. And in Bergengruen’s account of the growth of his Novelle it is clear that it was the action which originally caught his imagination :

Zu Anfang der dreissigcr Jahre begegnete ich in einer markischen Sagen- sanimlung . . . der Erzahlung von einem kriegerischen Einfall der Litauer in die Mark Brandenburg. Hierbei sei ein Kloster iiberfallen worden; die Nonnen wurden vergewaltigt. Eine von ihnen versprach ihrem Bedranger, sie wolle ihn einen Unverwundbarkeitszauber lehren, er moge an ihr selbst die Probe machen. Er glaubte ihr, totete sie wider Willen, und so konnte sie ihre Jungfraulichkeit ins Grab retten.

Die auf wenigen Zeilen kunstlos referierte Geschchte sprach inich n i t ihrer scharf ausgepragten Fabel an und hat mich wahrend der folgenden Jahre manchnial beschaftigt. Nach meiner Gewohnheit notierte ich mir

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gelegentlich ein paar Einfalle und liess die Sache dann wieder fur langere Zeit ruhen. Es war klar, dass das Motiv der urn den Preis des Lebens bewahrten Jungfernschaft in der blossen Uberfalls- und Totungsszene nicht genug Kontur hatte und seicht blieb.

Als ich dann 1944 oder 1945 iiieiiie NovelleIi1rigfrutrlichkeil schrieb, zu der sich die Vorgeschichte und die Personlichkcit der Heldin inzwischen ganz naturlich hinzugefunden hatten, da versctzte ich die Handlung nach Estland, nicht nur, weil die baltischen Ostseeprovinzen inir naher liegen als die Mark Brandenburg, sondern auch weil die Vorgiinge, die hier den Rahmen und Hintergrund geben, in der Mark als ein zufilliges Malheur wirken, wahrend sie in den ewigen Russenkriegen der altbaltischen Jahrhunderte als ein standig sich wiederholendes und bereits typisches Geschehen er~cheinen.~

Later the character of the heroine became the principal point of interest for the author. Bergengruen writes to Willibrand on 12 December 1950 that the main feature of Margarethe’s character, her pride, which may be seen as having both negative and positive qualities, is the basic premise on which the whole story is built up:

An diesem Stolz . . . wird sie irre, findet aber ini letzten und entscheidenden Augenblick auf eine immerhin grosse Weise zu ihni zuruck und stellt damit ihre Ubereinstimmung init dem Grundgesetz ihrer Natur wieder her. Uber dieses Grundgesetz hat der Autor in dieseni Falle nicht zu Gericht zu sitzen gehabt, es ist in seiner Existenz die von ihm zu akzeptierende Pramisse, mithin sein erzihlerischer Ausgangspunkt.

Thus again Bergengruen stresses the importance of interpreting the story from within the framework of the action. Plot and character, not any ‘moral’ considerations, remained the dominant interests for the author. He does not posit the centre of Margarethe’s being (her ‘Grundgesetz’) as something necessarily good in itself, but he does feel that her manner of being true to it shows ‘greatness’. H e has attempted to give us iiiJungjuulichkeit a portrait of an aristocratic and highly individualist character. Margarethe’s individualism is shown in the fact that she is not satisfied with the penance presumably prescribed by her religious mentors, but seeks to fuid out herself how, and to what, she should atone. The impression of her aristocratic naturc is built up by the frequency of the variations on the motif of ‘Stoh’, by the attention drawn to her qualities as a leader, to her natural ‘Erhohung’, and by an intensification of descriptive terms throughout the Novelle: she is a ‘Patri- zierstochter’ (p. 7),1° later she is ‘von fiirstlichem Stolz nicht fern’ (p. 61 f.) and finally we hear of her ‘konigliche Haltung’ (p. 66).

Ida Bentz, in a letter quoted in Willibrand’s article, interprcts Margarethe’s final decision and self-exposure to death as a positive acceptance of the will of God :

V I R G O - V I R A G O ? BERGENCRUEN’S ‘JUNGFRAULICHKEIT’ 209

Der neue Gedanke, der in ihr erwacht und der ihrem Leben die richtige Wendung und erst seinen Sinn gibt, weist uber sie selbst und iiber ihre eigene Person hinaus auf ein grosseres uber und ausser ihr liegendes Gesetz. Es ist das Gesetz ihres Schicksals, das bei Bergengruen, abgesehen von seinen romantischen Fruhwerken, nie ein anonymes und zufalliges ist, sondern ein personliches und gottgewolltes. Dem Gesetz des eigenen Schicksals gehorsam zu sein, ist hochste und edelste Pflicht des Menschen. Denn Schicksalsgehorsam im Sinne Bergengruens heisst Gehorsam dem Willen Gottes gegenuber.

Although God does not really comc into this story (He is mentioned once, and then in an indifferent context), this assessment is in general perfectly correct-but it proves unacceptable to Willibrand. He puts forward a list of points to prove that at the end, as well as throughout the seven years of her life spanned by the Novelle, Margarethe is in a state of multiple sin.l’ He sees Margarethe’s pride not, as Bergengruen does, as having positive elements, but as sinful throughout, and her feeling of being ‘apart’, the sense of ‘ErwShlung und Erhohung’ (p. 16) as one aspect of it. If one considers Willibrand’s explanation of, say, Margarethe’s conduct at her trial,12 one can only conclude that what lies at the root of his misinterpretation oflung- fruulichkeit is that he lacks real undcrstanding of the nature of nobility and of the kind of aristocratic behaviour Bergengruen is portraying.

Margarethe, states Willibrand, misuses her talents and ‘makes a physical appetite the object of mystical fervour’. This is a perversely irrelevant comment, since the climax of the action is the inner struggle which culmin- ates in Margarethe’s rejection of precisely this attitude. Again, Willibrand notes that ‘Margarethe uses her pride and her aristocratic temperament contrary to the principles of her order’. But Margarethe does not become a nun out of religious conviction, but because it is out of the question for her to go on living in Reval society as if nothing had happened. Bergengruen explains, in the letter of 18 October 1955 already quoted, that

die Heldin ins Kloster gegangen ist, ohne den eigentlichen Beruf zur Ordensfrau zu haben, nur erfullt von dem Wunsch, aus ihrer bisherigen Lebenskreise auszuscheiden; fur den mittelalterlichen Menschen, der, aus welchen Griinden immer, einen dcrartigen Wunsch hatte, gab es j a kaum eine andcre Moglichkeit als das Kloster, und schon gar nicht gab es sie fur ein Madchen. In unserer Zeit wire Margarethe wahrscheinlich ausgewandert und etwa Sekretarin in Chikago geworden.

Willibrand fails to see that Margarethe’s entry into the convent cxternalises in narrative terms the value of a spiritual existence and of a life guided by conscious decision and self-knowledgc. This aptitude for forming her own life is incipient in Margarethe from the start. Not only does her crime offend against the accepted conventions and change the whole direction of her existence, but the fact that she recognises as the most valid sentence, not

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210 VIRGO-VIRAGO? BERGBNGRUEN’S ‘JUNGFRAULICHKEIT’

the verdict of human justice nor the opinion of the majority, but her own judgement, implies that she accepts, albeit as yet involuntarily, the concepts of self-recognition and being true to oneself as the surest guides. Her attitude to her ‘Emahlung und Erhohung’ too is a considered one. She feels that her atonement must set a seal on them before they are rightly hers: she has an ethical goal to reach before she will accept that she is chosen or elevated. Further, her conception of her atonement takes on a universal character: she is responsible for the death of an individual, yet he was representative of life itself:

Er hatte j a nicht aus Bosheit gehandelt, sondern aus Leidenschaft. Leiden- schaft indessen zeigt, sie mag sonst geartet sein wie sie will, doch immer die Warme und Bewegtheit des Lebens . . . die Leidenschaft . . . verherrlicht das Leben, und tate sie es selbst schuldhafter Weise (p. 13).

She owes her atonement to ‘dies tausendfaltige, kochende, starke und farbige Leben’ (p. 2s) and what Willibrand calls her sinful thoughts of physical satisfaction at the news of the Russians’ approach are in reality the reflection of Bergengruen’s belief that life is something intensely positive, ‘gerufen und gepriesen von der Sonne, dem gliihenden Sommergestirn der Leidenschaft’ (p. 3 5 ) . Bergengruen comments in his letter of I 8 October 195 5 :

Worin die Heldin ihre Schuld erblickt, das ist zunachst die Totung des Angreifers, und diese aktuelle Schuld resultiert in ihren Augen aus einer grundsatzlichen, namlich aus einem falschen Verhalmis zur Schopfiing und zum Leben.

Moreover, although Margarethe has by now come to love the man she killed, she loves him not as a lover, but ‘wie einen heiligen Schutzpatron, einen Geist, Engel oder Dginon’ (p. 14)-he has become a part of her life, a part of her destiny, which she fully accepts : ‘Er war in ihrem Leben zugegen und nicht mehr zu entfernen’. Like all Bergengruen’s most positive charac- ters, she shows that creative adaptation to what befalls her, by which life is given sense and direction. Later too,

Wie alles, das ihr begegnete, hatten auch die Erohungen der Abtissin sich augenblicklich den Zugang und die Verbindung zum eigen tlichen Mittelpunkt ihres Schicksals geschaffen (p. 25).

It is stated early in the Novelle (p. 16) that Margarethe does not know what form her atonement is to take. She believes that the dead man will give her a sign, and having sinned by lulling in order to escape the forces of passion, of life itself, she ex ects to have to do penance by willing surrender to those

machtigen, noch dunklen Schicksal entgegenzugehen’ (p. 26). Willibrand, forces: ‘Sie dur f p te nicht mehr ausweichen; freien Willens hatte sie dem

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failing to understand why Margarethe must invite death, accuses her of sinful pride and deception. Pride may be s l n f u l in terms of Roman Catholi- cism. And indeed, as she gains in spiritual awareness, Margarethe comes to see her pride as having been sinful at the time when she killed the young man; but in the contrasting parallel situation at the close of the story her pride is shown to be part of her aristocratic, heroic outlook: she chooses death not because she prefers cold honour to life, but because she must be true to herself.

What is of vital importance, but is mentioned neither by Ida Bentz as quoted by Willibrand, nor by Willibrand himself, is that a distinction is made in the Novelle between two types of ‘Jungfrsulichkeit’. Bergengrucn’s use of the terms ‘Jungfraulichkeit’ and ‘Jungfernschaft’ is intcrcsting. Grimin’s dictionary explains ‘dass jungjuulich als edlcrcs Wort mehr das inncre Wescn, jiingferlich das aussere Gebahren einer Jungfrau hervorhcbt’. Thus ‘Jungfraulichkeit‘, the nobler word, would on the whole denote more the inner or spiritual quality.

In his account of the conception of the Novelle, as well as a t a crucial point in the narrative, Bergengruen uses ‘Jungfraulichkeit‘ synonymously with ‘Jungfernschaft‘ : ‘ihre Jungfraulichkeit ins Grab rettcn’, then ‘die um den Preis des Lebens bewahrten Jungfern~chaft’l~ and ‘was ware an diesen Jungfraulichkeiten gelegen gewesen, Jungfraulichkeiten dcr kleinen, engen, kgstlichen Seelen? Margarethe verachtete diesc arniseligen, abgestandenen Jungfernschaften . . .’ (p. 32). It is clear that in these few examples ‘Jung- fraulichkeit’ is equated with ‘Jungfernschnft’ and indicates the physical condition of virginity. But as such it is something which Margarethe rather despises. And Bergengruen cornelits that he felt the preservation of virginity as such to be an insufficient motif on which to base the Novelle. Not until the character of his heroine and her conception of virginity as a spiritual condition had formed in his mind could he proceed with the writing.

Margarethe calls in question the value of that type of virginity of which Bergengruen says that it is ‘einc Art der Jungfraulichkeit, die . . . nicht Gott ein Opfer zu bringen, sondern nur sich selber zu bewahren denkt, und diese ist dann wohl ‘‘rein, jedoch kalt, starr, unfruchtbar, tot” zu 11enne11’.14 But there is another glorious and heroic kind of virginity which she holds in respect-‘[die] jungfraulich strahlende Herrlichkeit der Gottin Diana, . . . die Jungfraulichkeit der Martyrin Agatha . . . der kiihnen und kraftvollen Herzen’ (p. 32). Margarethe is one of these herself. Bergengruen comments, ‘Ihrer ganzen Natur nach, dic j a mehr eine stolze als eine demutige ist, erscheint auch ihr Jungfraulichkeitsbegriff eher heidnish-amazonisch als chri~tlich‘.’~ It is certain that is not another rehash of the old tale of the virgin who The ‘Jungfraulichkeit’

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of the title is far from having mainly biological connotations. Virginity herc signifies purity in the sense of being true to oneself, to one’s image, to one’s fate. The words ‘Bild’, ‘Gestalt’, ‘Schicksal’ weave a patterned motif through the story. Similarly the ‘semper’ of the ‘semper Virgo’ in the final scene represciits that essence of oneself that one only gives up at the price of self- degradation. Hence, in Margarethe ‘Jungfraulichkeit’ signifies that inner harmony, the opposite of which is tension and disintegration. ‘Jungfrau- lichkcit’ represents, paradoxically, a creative approach to life and fate : life guided by meditation and decision as against life merely lived. Margarethe comes to realise that surrender to life is not enough. Surrender of‘lifc is necdcd in this situation. She has been in danger of ‘sich in das Los der Gcwolinlichkcit zu fluchten’ (p. 63). She suddenly perceivcs the truth: that it is not for her crime against the young man, either as an individual or as a represcntativc of Lifc that shc now needs to atone, but for considering the temptation to deviate from her proper path, from her true self.

It is important that mid-way through the narrative thc word ‘Virgo’ takes on something of the nature of a magic formula: Margarethe finds that shc has inadvertcntly (in what might be described as a process of unconscious meditation) traccd ‘Virgo’ several times in the snow :

sic spracli es laut vor sich hin, sie wiederholte cs, Lis es dcn ihr gelaufigen Klang vcrlorcn hattc und nun wie ein scheinbar sinnloses, aber init gchciiiier Zaubcrniacht crfiilltcs talisnianhaftcs Wortgebilde anniutete (p. 36).

Later the Russian, asked why hc crosscs himself before the portraits of thc abbesses, replies, ‘bei Bilderii koiine man nie wissen, was in ihncn stecke. 111 jedeni iniige eiii Zaubcr wohncn’ (p. 54). Thc link bctwcen thc ‘Bild’, ‘Zaubcr’ and ‘Virgo’ motifs is hcrc established, and adumbrates the ultimate conncction in Margarcthc’s mind-that one is the means of prcscrving the other.

Willibrand interprets her ‘lying’ to the Russian as sinful, yct essentially what she says is true, when she claims to have ‘cinen Zaubcr, der unver- wundbar macht und unverletzbar’. Her immunity, like her virginity, is of a spiritual nature. Spiritually she cannot be hurt, she is invulncrable through her determination, made immune by a faith not susceptible to conccptions of truth and justice (a theme trcated in Bergcngruen’s Feuerprobe). Also, although from the sources he quotes in Dichtergehuuse and from his own words in reply to a query (‘so bleibt . . . die Frage offen, ob es sich bei ihrem Tode nicht um eine larvierte Form des Selbstmordes handelt’)lG it is clear that Bergengruen imagined Margarethc as being killed by the Russian, yet the close of the Novelle is open to more than one interpretation: Do both Margarethe and the Russian believe in her magic? If so, is her faith strong enough to make it effective? Is he suddenly rendered powerless as she suggests

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(like Samson or Absalom, with whom he has been tentatively compared) ? The only sure thing is that whatever happens, whether she is killed or not killed, Margarethe remains ‘whole’ in spirit, her ‘Bild’, her identity, are entire-she has achieved unity, harmony, with herself and hcr fate. Thus she belongs to the elect among Bergengruen’s characters.17 To condemn Mar- garethe’s ‘suicide’ is to criticise all martyrs for their unnecessary choice of death. Moreover, Margarethe’s last words and gestures can bc intcrpreted as a prayer to, or in praise of, the Virgin Mary.18

There is another point where one must disagree with Willibrand. This is over his view of the symbols of the snow and of the Kanipehl coat of arms. He comments first that Margarethe interprets these according to her desires : at one moment the snow represents for her cold virginity, thc next, the cloud from which comes the ‘golden flower of passion’ in her family coat of arms. But it is clear that Margarethe’s varying view of the meaning of the symbols reflects her changing interpretation of what her course is to be. The ambivalence of thc symbol reflects the psychology of the Novelle, contributes to its quality of suspense and makes possible the unexpected dinouement. Margarethe’s conception of her atonement until an advanced stage in the action can rightly be interpreted as her surrender to a man, to passion, to both as representative of Life. The golden flower in her family coat of arms seems to her

ein verheisscner Inbegriff aller Hcrrlichkeit . . . Nicht ein diirrer Kranz sollte ihr zukommen ; sondern etwas Bluhendes und Gliihendes, etwas Griinendes und gestirnhaft Strahlendes . . . die . . . Willigkeit zur Siihne gestaltete sich ihr ZLI einer Erwartung des Unbekannten, des Schrecklichen und Siissen, ja, des Lebens selber in seiner Hohe, dem sie sich entwunden hatte

But this can bc given a spiritual interpretation just as much as a sexual one. Margarethe’s gradual realisatioii of the true meaning of her family crest may be traced in the text, culminating in the closing scene when, kneeling before the Russian, shc imagines

wie sein gepanzcrter Arm gleich den1 Silberarm im Wappcnschildc aus Wolken und Schneegestober herniederfiihre; und das Schwert, das er hielt, wurde ihr zu dem griinenden Pflanzenstengel und die Spitze des Schwertes zu der goldenen, sternformigen Bliite (p. 69).

Margarethe, thcn, likc Hofmannsthal’s Claudio, experiences thc supreme moment of life in death. Willibrand, who completely overlooks a key passage of the Novelle (beginning ‘In dcn Augenblicken . . .’ p. 61), conlrnents on the reappearance, on the last page, of the ‘symbol of the golden passion flower, presumably the symbol of Margarethe’s reunion with her dead lover’. This

(P. 38).

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is a complete misinterpretation. The meaning and purpose of Margarethe’s life are realised in her self-sacrifice, in that she welcomes her fate (as it has evolved throughout the last seven years, not just at this moment) and preserves her identity with her aristocratic nature for which a ‘Flucht in die Gewohnlichkeit’ is not an appropriate course. Margarethe is a hroic nature, and the type of solution most congenial to her would always be a heroic one.

Thus there can be no questioning that at the end Margarethe is in what Bergengruen would regard as an entirely positive state of mind, and that the theme of this Novelle, though not primarily religious, is completely in line with the rest of Bergengruen’s mature work and the outlook expressed there.

In fact, far from being a unique oddity among Bergengruen’s tales, Jungfruulichkeit fits into the main body of his more serious work not only by way of its theme, but also as regards its artistry. Willibrand overlooks the manner in which the one serves the other.

The structure ofJun ruulichkeit is typical of Bergengruen’s own particular handling of the Novel e genre. Bergengruen favours the balancing of two situations, one occurring early, one late in the plot, outwardly seemingly identical, but opposite in their outcome as a result of a change of attitude on the part of the hero or heroine. Such a balance of identical and opposite elements characterises D i e Feuerprobe. A similar balance is effected in D e r goldene Tischjuss; in the recurrence of the net motif in Das N e t z ; and again in the repeated escape of the falcon in D i e drei Fulketz. The scene ofJovinian’s second home-coming in Der Kaiser int Elend is a mirroring of an earlier scene, though it is not, as B&ziger suggests, ‘das . . . Gegenstuck der anfhg- lichen Flus~szene’~~-the real balance is between the two home-comings : on the first occasion, expecting to be welcomed by his family, Jovinian is driven out as an intruder; the second time, expecting nothing, hoping only to pass unrecognised, he is received with honour and acclamation.

The same technique characterises some of Bergengruen’s shorter pieces, such as Dus heilige Jahr and Musketengeschichte, as well as the longer Feuer- zeichen. In Dus Feuerzeichen, as in D i e Feuerprobe, the outlook of the main character undergoes a change from positive to negative. When he lights the first ‘Feuerzeichen’ Hahn is concerned with helping his fellow-men and saving lives. He lights the second in a mood of defiance and hatred, and this time uselessly destroys life. His change of heart is externalised in the contrast between the two ‘Feuerzeichen’ he lights : the lifesaving beacon and thc funeral pyre.

The repeated situation in]ungfriilrlichkeit is that the hcroine is about to be raped. The first time she resists by taking the man’s life. Until a very late sta e in the plot it appears that the opposite outcome of the parallel situation wi B 1 be that she will surrender willingly to the man; then at one point she

V I R G O - V I R A G O ? BERGENGRUEN’S ‘JUNGFRBULICHKEIT’ 215

considers stabbing him with his own dagger, as she had the first man. But Bergengruen provides a truer balancc: that on the first occasion, wishmg above all to preserve her physical integrity, Margarethe takes a life; on the second occasion, in order to preserve her spiritual integrity, she gives her own life. Thus the story is both formally and thematically entire, rather than life in a state of mid-air despair, as Willibrand would suggest.

The balancing of the two situations is particularly striking in Jungfiiuliclt kcit. The opening sentence tells briefly of Margarethe’s crime:

Margarethe Kanipehl, cine Revaler Patrizierstochter, hatte einen jungen Mann ihres Standes getotet, der ihr trunkenen Mutes hatte zu nahe treten wollen.

The concluding sentences deal with the parallel situation :

Eine lgngere Weile starrte der Mann auf den schlanken, schongesenkten Nacken, der schneeweiss iiber der dunklen Kutte leuchtete. Dann, plotzlich, stiess er einen kurzen, fast zornigen Laut hervor, riss das Schwert aus der Scheide, hob es und holte aus.

Herc, then, the two balancing sccnos not only give the narrative a dramatic opening and an even more dramatic close, but provide a deliberate form which mirrors the theme of giving life direction and shape, and of preserving integrity of character.

NOTES

’ Privilqieri des Dichfers, Zurich, 1957, p. 68. Mundlich gesprochen, Zurich, 1963, p. 257.

3 W. A. Willibrand, ‘On interpreting Werner Bergengruen’s short story]rmn~ra14lichkeit’, Monatsheft, XLIV, 1952.

From a letter of 18 October 1955, in the possession of Frau Charlotte Bergengruen. Op. tit., p. 65. Das Geheimnis verbleibt, Munich, 1952, p. 126. Author of Die Idee der ewigen Ordnung im Werke Werner Bergengruens, Diss., Vienna, 1950, and joint

author with W. A. Willibrand of Werner Bergengruen: Aspects .f hi5 L$e and Work, Books Abroad, 32, 1958. * In the Chapter ‘Dichtung und Dichter’ in Das Gehrimnis verbleibt Bergengruen comments on the irritating business of being asked to explain his own poems: ‘Ich sehe mich nicht recht imstande, meine Gedichte zu erkl%ren; andere konnen das vie1 besser. Es ist mir ungemein verdriesslich, wenn ich darum angegangen werde, etwa mit der Frage: “Was wollten Sie mit dem und dern Gedicht sagen?”. . . Kvln ich es aber gar nicht umgehen, mich kommentierend zu iussem, so tue ich das gem in der Weise, als spriche ich vom Gedicht eines fremden Poeten: vielleicht ist hier &ran zu denken . . . tnoglicherweise konnte diese Stelle aber auch so ausgelegt werden . . . eher scheint mir, das und das Wort sei hier in dem und dem Sinne gebraucht.’

9 Dichtergehause, Zurich, 1966, pp. 220 f. 10 References to]ungfriiulichkeit are to the edition published by Verlag der Arche, Zurich, 3rd. imp. 11 Cf. Gerhardt Weiss, who likens Margarethe to Hahn, the central figure of Das Feuerzeichen, and

thereby dearly indicates that the ending 6f JuqfkWchkei t is negative: Die Prosawerke Werner Bergen- p e n s , Diss., Wisconsin, 1956, p. 42.

l2 Op. cit., p. 70: ‘In the trial she is concerned mostly about telling the whole truth, so that the image of herself as the champion of veracity in the minds of the people will, like her maidenly honor, remain intact.’

I3 Cf. p. 211 above. Letter of 18 October 1955.

216 v I R G o -v I R A GO ? BER G E N G R u E N ’ s ‘ J u N G F R A u L I c H K E IT’

l5 Ibid. Ibid.

l7 It is interesting to note in passing that Bergengruen seem to use the word ‘Bild’ to suggest a value, in a manner reminiscent of Stefan George: cf. ‘Wer adel hat erfUllt sich nur ini bild / Ja zahlt dafk mit seinem untergang’ (St. George, Werke, Bondi Verlag, Berlin, 1927-34, VIII, p. 40). Similar echoes of George’s vocabulary may be noted in Bergcngruen’s poetry.

No one has ever raised the question of the possible origin of Margarethe’s last words: ‘Semper Virgo, seniper Virgo, semper Virgo. Virgo illaesa, Virgo intacta, nullo vulnere afllicta.’ Investigation has s o far yielded only negative results: they are not part of the Pontifical, the Missal, the Breviary; they are not from the Marian Hymns (nor did Anselm Salzer, Die Sinnbilder und Beiworte Mariens in der deufschen Literatur und lateinischen Hymnenpoesie des Mitfelalters, Linz, 1893, prove helpful); nor are they from the accounts of the life of St. Agatha in the Legendu Awed or the Acta Sarzctorrtrn. It seems that they arc n o t part of the vows of either the Carmelite or Benedictine orders, and that they are unlikely to be part of the vows of any order, since these take much more the form of legal contracts. In answer to my query, Frau Charlotte Bergengruen replied: ‘Die Stelle “Semper Virgo.. .” kann ich h e n zwar nicht nachweiscii. doch ist sie in ihrer ganzen Art der Lauretanischen Litanei nachgebildet. . . . Ich nehme . . . an, dass iiieiii Mann sich diese Stelle, die so genau auf die Situation zugeschnicten ist, seiner Art geni.iss, selbst gebildet hat.’

l9 Hans Banziger, WernerBergerigriren, Weg und Werk, Bern, 1961, p. 31.

THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM IN THE LATER WORKS OF JEAN PAUL

BY A. T. MACKAY

THE purpose of this article is to review the interest in Animal Magnetism, that is Mesmerism, which Jean Paul developed in his later years and to assess the effect of such an interest on his religious thought.

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), whose ideas enjoyed great popularity after 1775, used hypnotism to treat nervous disorders. He believed that there was ‘a mutual influence between the Heavenly Bodies, the Earth and Animate Bodies’ and that ‘a universally distributed and continuous fluid, which is quite without vacuum and of an incomparably rarefied nature, and which by its nature is capable of receiving, propagating and communicating all the impressions of movement, is the means of this influence’. In short, the Magnetizer manipulated this fluid to put his patient into the trance or mag- netic sleep. Since Mesmer’s theory suggested that something took placc in the animate world analogous to the phenomenon of magnetism in thc inanimate world, he called the process which he thought he had discovered Animal Ma netism.

Jean Paul s interest in Animal Magnetism developed very gradually. At first he does not take it seriously. It is just one of a host of ideas jostling for position in his fertile mind. To explain why it came one day to dominate his religious thought, we must observe how it fits in with other ideas of his and with certain changes that take place in his emotional and intellectual life at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Many influences work together to

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