The Light of Day
Letter from Adalbert Kehr to Konrad Josef
August 1884
Dear Friend,
It’s been months, I know, since I’ve written to you—how long has it been? For all I know the gap in our correspondence should now be measured in years, not months!—but something has happened, or rather, is about to happen, and I must share my exhilaration with someone who knows of what I speak—and that could only be you, dear Konrad! Old friend, I hope that you will understand why I write to you at this time, to you—my sternest critic, my most honest correspondent, my only friend, really, during those lonely years at Grüssau. For I have just learned some great news: my translation of the Heinrichlied may finally see the light of day!
I must admit that I have not even submitted the manuscript to a publisher, but I am ecstatic nonetheless. You see, the Heinrichlied has been read, and admired, by very important people—the right people. Next week I travel to Naumburg, to meet and discuss the manuscript with none other than Elisabeth Nietzsche, sister of Friedrich, and a close personal friend of Cosima Wagner! How this awakening came to pass is a most wondrous tale, with several detours into the forests of doubt and despondency. Not that my spirits have failed me these past two years—on the contrary, my work here at the Anti-Vivisectionist League has kept me more than fully engaged, quite vividly alive—but I must admit that deep inside me, in a certain part of my soul, the part that still harbored the dream of winning fame as a philologist, there was a place of despair, a bitter pond of mourning for the fiery dreams that possessed me at Grüssau Abbey—and in Gotha, where you and I drank and talked late into the night. The manuscript was like the half-born child of those dreams, bound in old cloth and twine, a being I could neither bury nor bring to life.
Then last year, in a moment of courage, I showed the manuscript to my colleague, Otto Schubert. Otto serves as the vice-president of the Anti-Vivisectionist League, and is one of the finest fellows you could ever meet. He comes from one of the wealthiest families in Saxony, but you would hardly know it, so devoid is he of decadent cosmopolitanism, and so devoted to our cause—the purification of the German laboratory, the German diet, and the German race. Otto read the manuscript, loved it, and told me there was only one thing to do—we must send it to Richard Wagner! I was astounded, of course, and begged him to delay. But Otto would give no quarter to my diffidence, and sent the manuscript by the next post to his older brother Max, who owns and manages the largest factory in Chemnitz. I’ve only met Max a few times, for he is a very busy man, but I understand that he has worked closely with many of the most advanced thinkers of our day—from Herr Professor Zöllner, God rest his soul, in whatever dimension it now resides—to the great historian and parliamentarian Heinrich von Treitschke—to the Master himself, Richard Wagner. When I thought of my manuscript being sent to Wagner with a letter of introduction from a factory owner, I couldn’t help but think of our time in Gotha, and all those narrow-minded fellows we met there. What we must absolutely bear in mind, as socialism evolves toward its new, Germanic destiny, is that some factory owners, like Max Schubert, are true friends of the German Working Man. Did you know that only a few years ago more than 10,000 of Max Schubert’s workers, of their own free will, signed a petition that Max and Herr Professor Z hand-delivered to Chancellor Bismarck? That is what I call Workers’ Solidarity! Konrad, I most sincerely hope that you have outgrown, as I have, those childish prejudices against our German business leaders that so infected the discourse at Gotha....
In any case, Max sent the manuscript off, implicitly trusting the judgment of his younger brother, and for the first time in years, I allowed my philological soul to feel something like hope—and I even began to plan the scholarly expedition to Grüssau Abbey, where a team of young scholars, under my direction, would recover the precious medieval holograph from the secret place where I have hidden it. But then, of course—well, you read the papers, you must know what happened next. One month later, we learned that Richard Wagner was dead.
Otto tried to console me, but this time it was I who would give no quarter—to pity. I told Otto to speak no more of my manuscript, for the death of Wagner was a far greater loss to our culture, our movement, and our nation than it could ever be to my little literary ambitions. From that day forward, I threw myself into the affairs of the Anti-Vivisectionist League with a focus and a passion I could not hitherto have imagined.
And then, yesterday, the letter arrived from Naumburg. Apparently Cosima Wagner found my manuscript among her husband’s papers (can you imagine the mountains of work he must have left behind?) and decided to forward the Heinrichlied to her old friend, Elisabeth Nietzsche. And now Elisabeth wants to meet with me, and has invited me to her home, to discuss “your manuscript and your future.” My manuscript and my future! Do you realize the effect the name “Nietzsche” has upon a philologist of my generation? To you as a bookseller, I am sure that Friedrich Nietzsche is simply a peculiar author who sells very few books, but I cannot overstate the impact that The Birth of Tragedy had upon me in my student days at Marburg. How the professors hated him! How bold he made us feel! And to think that I have been invited to the very house where he lived as a youth with his loving mother and sister!
When the meeting has taken place, I shall write for you a full report!
Adalbert
Next episode: The Matchmaker
For the impatient:
Buy ebook, audiobook on Amazon
Buy paperback on Lulu
Or just wait for the next episode…
Share this post