Breaking off, he said: “Look at that!” and both of them became aware of what was meeting their eyes. It happened as they were crossing a well-known and, if one may say so, generally well-regarded public square. There stood the Neue Universität, an imitation of a baroque building overloaded with fussy little details; not far from it stood a “neo-Gothic” church, an expensive affair with two towers that looked like a successful carnival prank; and the background was formed by two expressionless institutions belonging to the university, a palatial bank, and a large, drably sparse building serving as courthouse and prison that was several decades older. Swift carriages and massive carts crisscrossed this view, and a single glance could encompass both the solidity of what had evolved over time and the preparations for future prosperity, exciting admiration for human agency no less than poisoning the mind with an imperceptible residue of vacuousness. And without actually changing the topic of conversation, Ulrich continued: “Imagine a band of robbers had seized control of world power, endowed with nothing but the crudest instincts and principles! After a while, works of the mind would grow from this savage soil! And again over a period of time, once the mind had become cultivated, it would stand in its own way! The harvest grows, and its substance diminishes; as if the fruits tasted of shadows once the branches are full!”—He did not ask why. He had simply chosen the image to express his sense that most of what calls itself culture exists between the condition of a band of robbers and a state of indolent maturity; for if that was the case, it might also excuse all the talk into which he had been diverted, even though a tender first breath of promise had inspired its beginning.

32

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF

It could be said of many things that they might have determined Ulrich’s words or been obviously or tangentially associated with his thinking. For example, it was not long ago, on that unfortunate evening at Diotima’s, that he had talked to his sister and even to others about the great disorder of the emotions to which we owe the disastrous tides of history in much the same way as we do the small upheavals of confused opinion, one of which happened to be taking place then and there. But as soon as he said something now that might have general significance, he had the feeling that such words were coming out of his mouth a few days too late. He lacked the desire to involve himself with anything that did not directly concern him; what interest there was would dissipate quickly. For his soul was exceedingly ready to abandon itself to the world through all the senses, however that world might turn out to be. His judgment played all but no part in this. It even meant almost nothing whether something was to his liking or not. For he was more affected by everything than he could understand. Ulrich was used to occupying himself with other people; but that had always happened in connection with feelings and views that are meant to apply in the large, and now it was happening on the scale of small, particular impressions, adhering to every detail for no discernible reason. It was almost a state that he himself, in conversation with Agathe not long ago, had brought under suspicion of being the desire for fellow feeling on the part of a nature that does not truly empathize with anything, rather than a capacity for genuine caring. That had happened on the day when, provoked by a not insignificant difference of opinion concerning an individual he did not know very well, Professor August Lindner, he had made a hurtful remark to the effect that one never participates in anything or anyone as one ideally should. And indeed, once the state he was in now had lasted a while and reached a full measure, it became unpleasant or seemed ridiculous to him, and then, with the same motiveless readiness he had felt for self-abandonment, he was prepared to take himself back.