Mit einem Neigen seiner Stirne

On Rilke´s poem ´Der Engel´

By Berend ter Borg

Introduction

In this essay, I will investigate the resonances of a relatively neglected poem from Rilke´s Neue Gedichte: ´Der Engel´. I will attempt to demonstrate that the neglect is unjustified for various reasons. I will investigate its place within Rilke´s oeuvre, and will argue that, within his development, ´Der Engel´ is precocious. It does not fit in well with the poetics of the Neue Gedichte, and instead points towards the Duineser Elegien: The angel as it appears in this poem is the most significant ancestor, within Rilke´s work, of the angels of elegies.
The poem is also interesting from a number of other perspectives. It can shed some more light on Rilke´s complex relationship with Christianity, and Biblical themes; it contains resonances of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, another important topic within Rilke scholarship; and it confirms once more that, in spite of a preoccupation with history and literary tradition, Rilke´s mature work clearly belongs to literary Modernism.
My focus will be on Stoffforschung. I will investigate the development of the theme of the poem, and formal concerns will be of secondary importance.
I will first reproduce the poem, and make some general comments on it. I will then establish a theoretical framework, drawing upon the work of various scholars to establish a general account of a number of relevant issues, these being:
-Rilke´s use of the Bible as a source of inspiration
-the development of the angel within Rilke´s work
-the poetics of the Neue Gedichte
-the nature of literary modernism
I will also try to give some indication of how these issues relate to the poem ´Der Engel´. Then, in order to establish what the significance of the poem is, and to determine its place within the development of literary Modernism, I will compare it to a number of other texts: firstly, the poem ´The Prophet´ by Alexander Pushkin, followed by Nietzsche´s Also Sprach Zarathustra, then Kafka´s story ´Vor dem Gesetz´, and, finally, Rilke´s own first Elegy. The aim of these comparisons is to facilitate an analysis of the themes of the poem in relation to the currents in European literature, in order to establish to what extent Rilke´s poem is a departure from existing traditions.


There is an overwhelming amount of scholarship on Rilke, and both the Neue Gedichte and the theme of the angel have been investigated thoroughly. Nevertheless, I have found only one thorough analysis of ´Der Engel´.

I will seek to demonstrate that this poem can be relevant to an understanding of Rilke´s development. In doing so, I will focus more on Stoffforschung than on an investigation of the formal qualities of the poem. The poem helps to clarify several developments within Rilke´s work. These include the evolution of his poetry towards Modernism, and to his ambivalent relationship to the Bible, and to the Christian religion in general. The poem is relevant, because it is a relatively neglected utterance on one of the key motives within Rilke´s work.






1. The Poem ´Der Engel´

The middle period of Rilke´s work is of key significance to understanding the angel´s transformation. In the Neue Gedichte there is one single poem that is exclusively concerned with the angel as an abstract entity, and this is ´Der Engel´. The Neue Gedichte also contains the poem ´L´Ange du Méridien´, but this is, to some extent, a description of a statue on the southern portal of the Cathedral of Chartres, rather than a description of an angel as a metaphysical entity. It is possible that the poem ´Der Engel´ was also inspired by a work of art, but there are no reliable indications to this effect.

it is not clear, therefore, whether the poem is exclusively about this particular work of art, or can also be read as a description of an angel in the more abstract sense. To gain an idea of Rilke´s view of angels at this particular junction, ´Der Engel´ is therefore more suitable.

“DER ENGEL

Mit einem Neigen seiner Stirne weist
er weit von sich was einschränkt und verpflichtet;
denn durch sein Herz geht riesig aufgerichtet
das ewig Kommende das kreist.

Die tiefen Himmel stehn ihm voll Gestalten,
und jede kann ihm rufen: komm, erkenn - .
Gieb seinen leichten Händen nichts zu halten
aus deinem Lastenden. Sie kämen denn

bei Nacht zu dir, dich ringender zu prüfen,
und gingen wie Erzürnte durch das Haus
und griffen dich als ob sie dich erschüfen
und brächen dich aus deiner Form heraus.”

The poem was written in the early Summer of 1906 in Paris, and was included in the first volume of the Neue Gedichte, which came out in December 1907. (Stahl, 1978, 208) The first stanza praises the angel for its power and independence. In the second stanza, it is suggested the angel has a connection to a world of beings that are beyond human comprehension. The end of the second stanza and the entirety of the third stanza consist of a warning to human beings not to engage with the angel, lest the higher beings with which the angel is in touch will come and tear them apart. It is hinted that this destruction might have the purpose of re-making the human being into something new (“als ob sie dich erschüfen”), but this is not fully articulated.

The poem has been neglected. It is rarely mentioned in studies of the Neue Gedichte. Indeed, in his recent treatise on the Neue Gedichte, Peter Por mentions a very early and little known poem by Rilke that is also titled ´Der Engel´, but omits the eponymous poem from the Neue Gedichte. (Por, 1997, 181)
In studies of the theme of the angel in Rilke´s work, the poem is sometimes mentioned, but rarely studied in great detail. Rüdiger Görner mentions it in his chapter on Rilke´s angels, but does not devote more than a single paragraph to it. Ulrich Schödlbauer takes it into account in his recent essay on Rilke´s angels, but also devotes little room to it. The only recent scholar who analyses it in any detail is Paul Claes. He emphasizes the religious connotations of the poem.
(Claes, 1995, 66-69)
Why is this poem neglected? To begin with, it is not among the more accessible poems in the Neue Gedichte. Many poems in the collection have an immediate emotional resonance that ´Der Engel´ lacks. To some extent, the poem also fails to correspond to the critical discourse that has been developed for Rilke´s Neue Gedichte, making it less interesting for scholars.


3. Biblical allusions


It is always difficult to make out the importance of Biblical allusions in the work of Rilke. Of course, Rilke would acknowledge the debt he owed to the Bible, claiming, at one point, that he always had two books with him: the work of Jens Peter Jacobsen, and a Bible. A heavily marked copy of Luther´s translation of the Bible which was owned by Rilke is kept at the Rilke-archive in Gernsbach.
Analyses of Biblical influences on Rilke´s work have recently been provided by Ulrich Fülleborn and Katja Brunkhorst. The basis of their theory on this matter is as follows: Rilke testifies, in his Brief des jungen Arbeiters and elsewhere, that he prefers the Old over the New Testament. This, according to both Brunkhorst and Fülleborn, has an impact on how the two are reflected in his work. Whereas references to the Old Testament are mainly in line with the original source, Rilke consistently subverts any references to the New Testament. This, incidentally, means that his attitude towards the Bible is similar to Nietzsche´s, who had an appreciation for the Old Testament, while Also Sprach Zarathustra also inverts parts of the New Testament.
But Fülleborn and Brunkhorst raise important reservations with regard to the Biblical resonance in Rilke´s work. The Bible has been interpreted over and over again by different Christian denominations. Moreover, most Biblical themes are treated rather summarily within the Bible, only to be visualized in great detail by artists from different periods. Any reworking of the Bible has been influenced by such traditions. And in the case of Rilke, focussed as he was on the visual arts, this tendency would have been even more pronounced. (Fülleborn, 1999, 19-30; Brunkhorst, 2004, 37-40)

The Biblical origins of the figure of the angel are a case in point. The word ´angel´ in itself reveals part of the problem, in that it derives from the Greek, aggelos, colloquially pronounced ´angellos´, which means ´messenger´. The word does not refer to any pre-existent Greek mythological creature, which was then assimilated to the Christian tradition. There are various winged gods and creatures which might bear some relation to the eventual Christian angel, such as the divine messenger Hermes with his winged shoes (who was also notable for his exceptionally large penis, setting him somewhat apart from the Christian angels, who are often thought to be sexless), the winged goddess of victory Nike, Eros, the winged god of love and desire, the winged horse Pegasus, and so forth. More importantly, ´angel´ is not a word that has a direct equivalent in Hebrew. (Vorgrimler, 2001, 8-17) The Luther translation, which was most important for Rilke, reflects this. In many cases, apparitions that were identified by tradition as being ´angels´ are not identified as such in the Old Testament. This is true, even, for the passage that Paul Claes identifies as being possibly the most important source of inspiration for the poem ´Der Engel´. Claes mentions Jacob´s wrestling with the angel: however, in the Luther translation (Genesis 32:25-33) no mention of an angel is made. Jacob comes to a place, and ´Da rang ein man mit ihm´. Jacob wins, and when he asks the man who he is, the man says that he now blesses Jacob, because “du hast mit Gott und mit Menschen gekämpft und du hast gewonnen.” Jacob asks the man for his name, and the man responds “Warum fragst du, wie ich heisse?” The inference from the passage in the Luther Bible would be that Jacob has wrestled God himself, rather than a messenger from God. However, tradition has it that Jacob fought an angel. If the poem ´Der Engel´ was inspired by this passage from the Bible, then only indirectly, possibly after mediation from an artistic source.

Another intriguing example is a similarly cryptic passage from the Book Josua. All through the book, Josua communicates directly with God. Then, in Josua 5:13-15, Josua sees a man walking around all alone, and asks him if he is a friend or foe. The man answers ´Nein,´ which could be taken to mean that he is neither a friend nor a foe, ´sondern ich bin der Fürst über das Heer des HERRN.´ Josua asks which orders God´s servant (Knecht) gives him, and the ´Fürst über das Heer des HERRN´ tells him to take his shoes off, as he is standing on hallowed ground.
The passage is oddly isolated within the Book Josua. The ´Fürst´ makes his first and last appearance here. Afterwards, God continues to speak to Josua directly. Furthermore, the ´Fürst´ identifies himself as the leader of God´s army, but where is God´s army? Is it somewhere out there, invisible to Josua? A salient, inexplicable passage of this sort may well have fed Rilke´s imagination.

There are, of course, many instances in Luther´s translation of the Old Testament where angels are identified as being angels, for instance in Genesis 19, when two angels visited the city of Sodom. Generalising, we can say that, in the Old Testament, angels:
1) are not always identified as such. It would not, in fact, have been possible to identify them as angels, because the word originates from the Greek, while the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, without much preceding influence from Greek culture.
2) only make intermittent appearances, as God mostly speaks to human beings directly. Consequently, the angels´ role as ´angelloi´, ´messengers´ is not as central.
3) tend to play a somewhat sinister role. They are often the harbingers, and sometimes the executors, of the wrath of the Lord.

The angels in the New Testament are rather different from those in the Old Testament. God himself does not normally speak directly to human beings, therefore ´angels´ are introduced as messengers. They are also not as sinister as they are in the Old Testament, communicating a message of salvation from God to human beings. The exception is the Revelation of John, in which angels are dominantly present, and revert to their aggressive role from the Old Testament.

These observations serve to make the only analysis of the poem ´Der Engel´, by Paul Claes, somewhat problematic. According to Claes, most of the poem is either inspired by the Bible, or reacting against it.

An example of the first is “…das ewig Kommende das kreist” which Claes relates to Revelations 4:8: “…Heilig, Heilig, Heilig ist Gott der Herr, der da war und der da ist und der da kommt.” An example of the latter is “Gieb seinen leichten Handen nichts zu halten aus deinem Lastenden,”an inversion of Psalms 55:23: “Wirf dein Anliegen auf den Herrn”.
Claes also detects references to Jacob´s wrestling with the angel in the book Genesis, and to the books Exodus, Jesaja, Corinthians, and Job, which he does not specify. Claes is of the opinion that the poem ´Der Engel´ is a halfway house within the evolution of Rilke´s angel: the poem still expresses some Christian sentiments, but also rebels against Christianity. (Claes, 1995, 66-69)
This analysis is somewhat unsatisfying. Claes does not provide any evidence that the Biblical allusions he detects were actually relevant to Rilke´s creative process. The differences between Rilke´s text and the quotes as they appear in the Luther Bible are such, that it must remain a matter of ambivalence whether they were a direct influence.
Still, it seems likely that the Old Testament was a partial inspiration for the poem. The angel in the poem does have something in common with the many enigmatic and sinister angelic figures of the Old Testament.




3. The Evolution of Rilke´s Angels: Some Scholarly Views

Angels are a recurrent motive within Rilke´s oeuvre. His earliest work contains a cycle of poems titled Engellieder (1897-1898), and angels are also present in Das Stunden-Buch (1899-1903), although they are less important here than elsewhere. In the middle period there are a number of significant poems featuring angels, in the Buch der Bilder (1902 and 1906), the Neue Gedichte (1907-1910), and elsewhere. Then, in his late work, angels once again play a key role in the Duineser Elegien (1912 and 1922). After that, angels largely disappear from Rilke´s German poetry, but maintain a strong presence in the French poetry he wrote in his final years.
Because angels are a recurring element within an oeuvre that is otherwise subject to such radical development, it can be used as an instrument with which to measure this development. (Rilke, 2006; Engel, 2004)
The angel in Rilke´s work is subject to a metamorphosis. The angels in the very early work, including the Engellieder, are, to some extent, consistent with the benevolent, but relatively weak creatures of popular culture. They are highly dependent upon human beings on the one hand, and God on the other. In Das Stunden-Buch, they are even weaker, being nothing but servants. Starting with the middle work (the Buch der Bilder and the Neue Gedichte), angels become stronger and more independent. The relationship between the angels and God starts to become hazy, as they are hardly mentioned in connection with each other anymore. The angels´ attitude towards human beings is now increasingly characterised by indifference and a sense of disdain. Human beings, in turn, can no longer comprehend or touch angels. By the time of the Duineser Elegien, it would seem as if angels have themselves become the supreme beings in the universe, set apart by their great beauty, which is so overpowering that it is dangerous to human beings.
Various critics have commented on this development, and tend to share the opinion that Rilke´s angels gradually develop into ´Modernist´, ´post-metaphysical´, or even ´atheist´ beings.
Jakob Steiner believes that, in Rilke´s late work, the angels have seized power. While God was mentioned frequently in the early work, much more so than the angels, “so wird Gott jetzt (in the late work) kaum noch genannt”. But: “…. der Engel ist übermächtig geworden.” Somewhere after the Stunden-Buch, but prior to the Duineser Elegien, something decisive happened to Rilke´s angels, something that allowed them, in a sense, to replace God. In the Duineser Elegien, the angel has become the supreme being. “In ihm ist alles versammelt, was der Mensch……. nur sukzessive, also getrennt, und unvollkommen erfassen kan.” The angel cannot or will not share these riches, because human beings are infinitely far removed from him. “…… eine Annäherung des Engels an den Menschen (means) nur dessen Tod.” (Steiner, 1986, 148-166)
Ulrich Schödlbauer perceives the angel as a potentiality: a symbol of a higher, idealised world that is purely imagined. The angel is impervious, and even dangerous, because this imagined world is no longer available to human beings. The world has been robbed of its magic, in more than one sense. The human race has lost belief in many different things: not only in God, but also in, let us say, faeries, and, most importantly, in the idea of an orderly world where all things have their purpose. Religion has been lost, but at the same time, the ideal of the Enlightenment is no longer able to take its place. Angels represent the awareness of this loss. (Schödlbauer, Heidelberg, 2002)
Rüdiger Görner also notes that angels played a role in Rilke´s work from the very beginning, and claims that the “modernistischen Verhältnisses zum Engel” started in the Buch der Bilder. Görner describes this Modernist angel as an “ästhetischen Zwischenwesen aus Restbeständen des Glaubens und Projektionen des sich selbst auf Spiel setzenden Ich im nachmetaphysischen Zeitalter”. He insists that the angel that appears in the Buch der Bilder has a great deal in common with the angels in the Neue Gedichte and the Duineser Elegien, but he does note that the angels in Das Marien-Leben (1912) are somewhat different. In this text, which was written at a relatively late stage of Rilke´s development, the angel is not as independent and indifferent as in the other texts. Its primary role here is once more to communicate between human beings and higher powers. A throwback, it could be said, to the more traditional perception of the angel from the early work.
Then finally, in the Duineser Elegien, Rilke´s angels gives up on the task of being an intermediaries between human beings and a higher reality once and for all. It is no longer possible for human beings even to enter into communication with angels: the human race has been cut off. (Görner, 2004, 230-243)
A related issue is Rilke´s relationship to God. The Christian angel, by definition, is a messenger and servant of God. Volumes have been written on Rlke´s religious viewpoints, but the prevailing opinion is that Rilke, in spite of frequent references to God, is not a religious poet. It has been noted that, in Rilke´s work, God gradually becomes more feeble and vulnerable, and, to some extent, inferior to and weaker than the human race. (Baer, 2006, 98-110) Briefly put, God´s development is the opposite if that of the angel, and it is therefore unsurprising that angels gradually seem to cease being dependent upon God.
To use words such as ´atheist´ or ´post-metaphysical´ in relation to Rilke´s angels may not be entirely accurate. But whether God still exists in the later work, whether the angels have become the equivalent of God, or whether the concept of a higher, metaphysical reality has been dispensed with, is not of fundamental importance. The angel has turned away from the human race, and therefore, human beings are thrown back on themselves, and have become pitiful, hopeless creatures in a chaotic world: something that fits in well with the disjointed state of the world which is familiar from so many other texts that are considered to belong to literary Modernism.






3. The Poetics of the Neue Gedichte

Theorising about the Neue Gedichte is difficult. There appear to be common threads within the collection, but it is impossible to generalise. There are too many exceptions to rules that are being laid down, and ´Der Engel´ is one of them.

The article by Wolfgang Müller on the Neue Gedichte in the Rilke-Handbuch sums up a series of characteristics of the collection. “Die Dinge werden dabei wie in einem Gemälde, von ihrer Umgebung isoliert, unter Konzentration auf das Sichtbare und unter Verwendung vielfältiger metaphorischer Techniken…… präsentiert.”
To what extent do these pronouncements hold true for ´Der Engel´? ´Wie in einem Gemälde´ could mean anything. “….von ihrer Umgebung isoliert´, is also problematic. The angel in ´Der Engel´ clearly has a relationship to the human race, albeit a relation of indifference. It is also connected to a world of higher beings, and inn fact, it is a bridge between the two: a bridge the human beings might do well never to trespass on.
There does not seem to be a “…..a Konzentration auf das Sichtbare”. Rilke does not bother with a description of the physical properties of the angel, and chooses to concentrate on its metaphysical properties.
Towards the end of the poem, there are a number of metaphors, however. It is said that the nameless entities go ´….wie Erzürnte durch das Haus´ and grasp human beings ´….als ob sie dich erschüfen´.
In most ways, the poem ´Der Engel´ is an exception to Müller´s generalisations.

Another, more intuitive, approach to the Neue Gedichte is somewhat more fruitful. Judith Ryan has said that the Neue Gedichte could be conceived of as a walk through a virtual picture gallery. Every poem in the collection relates either to an actual, or a possible work of art. It is unclear whether any specific work of art inspired ´Der Engel´, but of course there is an abundance of angels in the history of art. To name but a few: the ´Ange du Meridien´ on Chartres cathedral, the angels on frescoes by Fra Angelico in Florence, on the Ponte Sant´ Angelo in Rome, et cetera. Even Rodin himself sculpted a number of angels. German popular culture was also suffusued with angels.
It would not have been difficult for any potential reader of Rilke´s work to picture an angel, and in fact, Rilke calls upon his readership to do so. By the simple act of giving his poem the title ´Der Engel´, he inevitably invokes images in his reader´s minds. If that would not be the case, or if the poem had been given a different title, its effect would have been fundamentally different. The text does not mention any details that we would inevitably associate with an angel. Other authors might be tempted to refer to a ´flutter of wings´ or something along those lines, but not Rilke. He refers to ´der Himmel´, but makes no other references that are overtly angelic.
This procedure is not at all uncommon within the Neue Gedichte. Rilke does something in many other poems, including, for instance, ´Der Panter´. There are no words in the body of the text that would, independently of the title, call a leopard to mind. There is no mention of a tail, talons, or a jaw. There is no conventional feline imagery. ´Think of a leopard,´ Rilke seems to say, and then he takes off. This is the essence of what Rilke had in common with the early modern painters and sculptors he admired. The thing in itself is a starting point, the focus of intense concentration. The artist (Cézanne, or Rilke) looks at the object for a long time with such intensity that it ceases to be the same thing everybody else sees. Cézanne no longer paints the way academic painters would: he uses different colours, and even different shapes, to depict the same things others would paint with conventional shapes and colours. Rilke attempts to do the same thing in language in the Neue Gedichte, and succeeds. He also depicts subjects that would have been relatively conventional, but he manages to eschew cliché. By using new language, he reveals new aspects of angels, leopards, and other things. (Ryan, 1999, 50-91)




5. Modernism: A Working Definition

Almost every aspect of the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke evolved significantly over the course of his life-time. His style, his working methods, and the underlying ideas are all subject to major transformations. Where his very early poems are considered to be fairly conventional, and a bit old-fashioned, or even sentimental, his late work is often considered to belong to the era of Modernism.

Modernism will be looked at in an international perspective. In Germany, the current in literature described as ´die Moderne´ begins in the 1880s, and ends with World War I. Rilke did engage with literary developments within Germany, but also with developments outside of Germany, particularly in France. The problem with applying the international definition of modernism to Rilke is that developments within the English-speaking world are essential to this definition. It is tempting to align Rilke´s development with that of English-language poetry. The poetry of the era of the Neue Gedichte is often compared to the work of the Imagists, particularly William Carlos Williams, and the Duineser Elegien are sometimes perceived as a German-speaking counterpart to Eliot´s The Waste Land, in part because they were written in the same year. Rilke was astonishingly familiar with the most important French representatives of high modernism, but entirely unfamiliar with its English-speaking representatives

The temptation to think of him as a Modernist is partly inspired by the contingency that his two most famous works, the Duineser Elegien and the Sonette an Orpheus came into existence in the annus mirabilis of Modernism, 1922, the year also associated with James Joyce´s Ulysses, T.S. Eliot´s The Waste Land, and a number of other key texts. But the differences are also apparent. Modernist literature is sometimes thought of as literature that actively engages with the modern era, and in this sense, Rilke does not fit in. When putting his work next to that of Eliot and Joyce, or that of most authors who are commonly described as Modernist, Rilke´s work just seems less modern. Joyce, for instance, juxtaposes the classical Odyssey with contemporary Dublin. Likewise, Eliot´s The Waste Land also refers back to the old cultural tradition, but is simultaneously inspired by the chaos of contemporary London. Rilke does something similar in Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, juxtaposing a modern Parisian hospital ward with the traditional life of the Danish nobility, but it is hard to detect the modern world in most of his poetry. This may well be a superficial concern, however. Engagement with the modern world is not necessarily the distinguishing characteristic of a Modernist text.

For the purpose of analysing Rilke´s work, Eliot´s review of Joyce´s Ulysses seems particularly relevant. Eliot argued that traditional literary forms were unable to deal with the chaos of the modern world. There used to be a certain coherence in the world, a transcendent order, but it has disappeared. In the perception of the Modernists, the world was disjointed, broken, cut off from a higher reality. For a text to be Modernist, it has to reflect this broken state of reality. It does not necessarily have to reject tradition: it only has to recognise that tradition is now also broken, and has therefore become problematic. Many other definitions of Modernism are possible, but this is the one that will apply in this essay.
For Rilke´s poetry, which is much concerned with religious themes, the existence of a divine order is essential to a coherent universe. This goes beyond the mere existence of a god. If God does exist, but fails to take an interest in the human race, or does not adhere to his covenant with the human race, the universe is in a disjointed state nevertheless. (Abrams and Harpham, 2005, 175-177; Engel, 2004, 507-528)


6. Alexander Pushkin´s ´The Prophet´

An interesting parallel to Rilke´s vicious angels in general, and ´Der Engel´ in particular, can be found in the poem ´The Prophet´ by Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), written in 1826. Pushkin is thought of as the first representative of the classical period of Russian literature. In terms of his subject matter and style, much of his work, and particularly his lyric poetry, is close to the spirit of European Romanticism. Rilke may well have known this particular poem, as he was a translator of Russian literature, and did report reading Pushkin´s work. (Lehmann, 2004, 103 ) The poem is mainly of interest, however, because it is a representation of the angel from an author steeped in the Romantic literary tradition. The theme of this poem resonates with that of ´Der Engel´ to some extent. Wandering through the desert, an ignorant and despondent human being is confronted by an angel, “a six-winged seraphim”, and is literally slaughtered, taken apart bit by bit. The angel literally amputates various parts of the human´s body, and replaces everything he takes away with something better or purer.

“And he clove my breast with his sword,
And drew forth my palpitating heart,
And into the open breast he inserted
A coal, blazing with fire.”

The angel also amputates and replaces the person´s tongue, the person´s eyes, and so forth. The purpose of this act is to re-make the human being, to make him more independent of the opinions of others, and more courageous: to turn him into a prophet. Pushkin´s angel is as vicious and as dangerous as that of Rilke, but there is a fundamental difference. For the Romantic Pushkin, the angel´s intention is to elevate the mortal human being to a higher state. Dangerous and frightening as this angel might be, he does engage with the human race. Rilke warns of a similar confrontation, in which the angel´s nameless allies also demolish a human being. But he does not specify what, if anything, the human beings might receive in exchange. Nor does Rilke´s angel go out of its way to inflict this horror upon the human being. The human being will have to actively confront the angel if anything is to happen. The angel, elevated as it is, has turned his back on the human race. It will react violently to the human race, not for any clearly defined purpose, but rather out of something resembling irritation. Because the themes of the two poems are to some extent similar, the differences in the worldviews the two poems represent are all the more salient. (Pushkin, 2003)



7. Nietzsche´s Übermensch

The impact of Friedrich Nietzsche is often thought to be a decisive influence in the evolution of literary Modernism. A number of commentators have also drawn attention to the hard to define, but clearly perceptible influence of Nietzsche on the work of Rilke, and have made a point of drawing parallels between Nietzsche´s Übermensch and the Rilkean angel. Some parallels could be drawn between some of Nietzsche´s works, and particularly Also Sprach Zarathustra, and the poem ´Der Engel´. There is one broad similarity between Also Sprach Zarathustra and Rilke´s poem, as viewed by Paul Claes: both works invert Christian imagery in order to undermine the Christian religion.
A more obvious similarity is in the line “Denn durch sein Herz geht…… das ewig Kommende das kreist´´, which Richard Detsch connects to the concept of the ´eternal recurrence of the same´ from Also Sprach Zarathustra. (Detsch, 2003, 56) This is the idea that everything that happens in the universe, down to the smallest detail, is part of a cycle of events that will be repeated in the exact same way into eternity. Consequently, the universe is pointless in the most literal sense of the word: that is, there is no point in which everything will culminate. History has no destiny, and there is no progress or regress. Historically, this idea should be seen as a counterpoint to the linear, historicist ideologies which were dominant at the end of the nineteenth century: Christianity, Enlightenment philosophy, Hegelian dialectics, Marxism, and even early forms of Darwinism. Adherents of these ideologies believed history had a purpose, and would
According to Walter Kaufmann´s interpretation, the “Übermensch”, the ´high man´ from the Zarathustra, who is destined to overcome the human race, is unthinkable without the concept of the ´eternal recurrence of the same´. Because how is the ´high man´ superior to human beings? Mainly because of his awareness of the ´eternal recurrence´. Unlike all the ´historical men´, held in thrall by the petty hope given them by Christianity, Marxism, Hegelian dialectics, and similar ideologies, the high man knows that, because of the eternal recurrence, life is pointless. But, unlike Schopenhauer and the ´Decadents´, he does not regret this. The high man revels in his awareness of the pointlessness of life.. The Übermensch is not necessarily superior in any more superficial way, and does not need to be. (Kaufmann, 1987, 307-333) In Rilke´s poem, “das ewig Kommende das kreist” is clearly defined as an aspect of the angel. It is within him. And like Nietzsche´s high man, the angel is also far superior to ordinary human beings. But is the angel in Der Engel superior because it is aware of this cycle? Or is it rather that, with its violent nature, it is an agent of this cycle? Or both? There is no evidence available to answer these questions definitively.
Another Nietzschean element is the juxtaposition of lightness and heaviness. “Gieb seinen leichten Händen nichts zu halten aus deinem Lastenden,” writes Rilke. Nietzsche frequently expresses his dislike of ´Schwerheit´, of spiritual heaviness, and praises light spirits on many occasions. His Zarathustra ultimately utters the invocation: “Auf, lasst uns der Geist der Schwere toten!” (Nietzsche, 1973, 306-307) In ´Der Engel´, the higher beings to which the angel has access threaten to do exactly that.
These similarities on matters of detail point to larger, more abstract parallels. Like the poem ´Der Engel´, Nietzsche´s work reflects the idea that human beings have been thrown back on themselves. They cannot hope for salvation from a higher power. This does not imply, however, that the human race is the apex of the universe. Both Rilke and Nietzsche find it easy to conceive of beings that are much greater, more beautiful, and more complete than the human race. In the case of Rilke, this is the angel, in the case of Nietzsche, the high man. Having transcended the human race, they would not feel the need to pity human beings, or chastise them, or be involved with them in any way at all.


8. Kafka´s ´Vor dem Gesetz´

In terms of themes and style, the distance between Pushkin´s poem and that of Rilke may not seem unbridgeable, but in terms of underlying ideas, Rilke´s poem ´Der Engel´ definitely belongs to the early 20th century. Underneath, Rilke´s angel is a sinister figure who denies human beings access to a higher reality. In this respect, he is reminiscent of the ´Türhüter´ from the parable ´Vor dem Gesetz´ by Franz Kafka (1883-1924), which was written in late 1914, and first published in 1915, and was also an integral part of the novel Der Prozess. It is a story about the warden at the gate that provides access to the Law. A man comes and asks to be admitted, but the warden refuses. His demeanour towards the man is stoic and indifferent. He challenges the man to try and go past him, but warns him of his own might, and the even greater might of the wardens of the gates behind him. The man does not attempt to pass, but instead pleads with the warden, and even tries to bribe him, all to no avail. Ultimately, the man ages and dies. The warden tells him he will now close the gate, because it was only intended for him. The warden is not described in any great detail. No indications are given as to his looks, how he feels, or whether he ages.
There is a measure of similarity between the role of the warden in this story and the role of the angel in Rilke´s poem. Both the angel and the warden stand between a human being and something higher that remains invisible. The other, mightier wardens the first warden speaks about are parallels of the “Gestalten” of whom the angel is aware. The human being is incapable of knowing these higher entities, and yet they could be dangerous to him. In both texts, the actual confrontation remains hypothetical – in Rilke´s poem, human beings are warned against confronting the angel. In Kafka´s story, the warden of the gate himself delivers the warning.
The essence is the same – both the warden and the angel stand between a human being and a higher world, and have no interest in, and no compassion for, that human being. (Kafka, 2007, 162-163)


10. The Duineser Elegien

Probably more than any other poem within Rilke´s early and middle period, the angel in ´Der Engel´ points to the angels in the Duineser Elegien. It is a harbinger of the despair of the first few elegies – any attempt to touch the angel of ´Der Engel´ is dangerous. The same is true in the first elegy: ´…gesetz selbst, es nähme einer mich plötzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem stärkeren Dasein.´ The them of the rest of the Duineser Elegien revolves around the human attempt to either undo this regrettable condition of being cut off from the angel and his higher reality, or, as for instance in the ninth Elegy, to attempt to find something valuable in the lower, cut-off human existence. The Duineser Elegien begin where ´Der Engel´, and, in a different way, Kafka´s ´Vor dem Gesetz´, end.


Conclusion

The angel in Rilke´s poem ´Der Engel´ is a hybrid being. It derives from an old religious and literary tradition, but no longer belongs there. The poem echoes the Bible, and is also somewhat reminiscent of Pushkin´s angel in the poem ´The Prophet´. Nevertheless, but this angel is qualitatively different: it is no longer focussed on its engagement with the human race. When confronted with this angel, human beings will feel they are immeasurably far removed from it. It is a link in a chain that has been broken. In that sense, the angel in this poem has far more in common with Nietzsche´s ´Übermensch´ and Kafka´s ´Türhüter´ than with any of its more traditional angelic precursors.
Although the method behind ´Der Engel´ is recognisable poems within the Neue Gedichte, in terms of its subject matter,
the poem points forwards to the next stage in Rilke´s development. This angel is already ´schrecklich´, like the angels at the beginning of the Duineser Elegien. At this stage, Rilke does not yet commence the struggle to find new meaning in a universe in which even angels have become so terrible, and so remote.















Works consulted:

Abrams, M.H, and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms, Eighth Edition, Thomson Wadsworth, Boston, 2005,

Baer, Ulrich. Das Rilke-Alphabet, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 2006,

Die Bibel, oder die ganze heilige Schrift des alten und neuen Testaments, nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers, Württembergische Bibelanstalt, Stuttgart, 1968

Brunkhorst, Katja. ´Bibel´, in: Engel, Manfred and Dorothea Lauterback (ed). Rilke-Handbuch, Leben-Werk-Wirkung, Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart Weimar, 2004, 37-40,

Claes, Paul. Raadsels van Rilke, Een nieuwe lezing van de Neue Gedichte, Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 1995,

Detsch, Richard. Rilke´s Connections to Nietzsche, University Press of America, Lanham-New York-Oxford, 2003

Engel, Manfred. ´Rilke als Autor der Moderne,´ in: Engel, Manfred and Dorothea Lauterback (ed). Rilke-Handbuch, Leben-Werk-Wirkung, Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart Weimar, 2004, 507-528,

Fülleborn, Ulrich. ´Rilkes Gebrauch der Bibel, in: Manfred Engel and Dieter Lamping, Rilke und die Weltliteratur, Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf/Zürich, 1999, 19-30,

Görner, Rüdiger. Rainer Maria Rilke, Im Herzwerk der Sprache, Paul Zsornay Verlag, Vienna, 2004,

Kafka, Franz. ´Vor dem Gesetz´, in: Die Erzählungen und andere ausgewählte Prosa, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2007, 162-163,

Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Vintage Books, New York, 1968,

Lehmann, Jürgen. ´Kontakte und Kontexte: Russland´, in: Engel, Manfred and Dorothea Lauterback (ed). Rilke-Handbuch, Leben-Werk-Wirkung, Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart Weimar, 2004, 98-111,

Müller, Wolfgang. ´Neue Gedichte/Der Neuen Gedichte anderer Teil´, in: in: Engel, Manfred and Dorothea Lauterback (ed). Rilke-Handbuch, Leben-Werk-Wirkung, Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart Weimar, 2004, 296-317,

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Also Sprach Zarathustra, Werke II, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1973,

Por, Peter. Die orphische Figur, Universitätsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg, 1997,


Pushkin, Alexander. ´The Prophet´, transl. Daniel Weissbort, Educational Insight – Poet´s Corner, 2003. http://www.cfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08n01/poet/teaching/prophet.html.

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Die Gedichte, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, 2006,

Ryan, Judith. Rilke, Modernism and Poetic Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999,

Schödlbauer, Ulrich, Rilkes Engel, Edition Zeno im Manutius Verlag, Heidelberg, 2002,

Stahl, August. Werner Jost, and Reiner Marx, Rilke Kommentar zum lyrischen Werk, Winkler Verlag München, 1978,

Steiner, Jakob. Rilke, Vorträge und Aufsätze, von Loeper Verlag, Karlsruhe, 1986,

Vorgrimler, Herbert, Ursula Bernauer and Thomas Sternberg, Engel, Erfahrungen göttlicher Nähe, Herder, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 2001,

Vironosowo Wonosobo, Prince of Solo

from the novel: Iron will bend but a palmtree will neither bend nor break

It was a different world I entered into then. If anything, it resembled a descent into the underworld. Or as if my senses had suddenly been numbed; as if somebody had made me go through a torture session, and took everything away from me. Plucked out my eyes, plopped my eardrums, lopped off my nose, pulled out my tongue, everything. It was not that I felt more afraid than I had at home. Beguiling and beautiful as court life in Indonesia is, one would have to be recklessly foolish to feel safe under suchcircumstances. A legitimate son in a court of bastards is never safe. Every bowl of rice could hide poison, every hand a knife. It was not that I felt more scared in the Netherlands. The fear was different. Back home I had been taught to be afraid for myself, for my personal safety. In the Netherlands, it was suddenly the fate of mankind as a whole I was worried about.

Imagine my life at my father’s court, one of the minor princes of Solo. I was surrounded, always surrounded, by servants, in colourful sarongs, perpetually ready to do anything for me. The sun beat down on the roofs like the rain does in Europe. Always, the sound of gamelans, either close by or in the distance, the muezzins calling to prayer. There were birds, in all colours, caged or free alike, singing. The food was prepared in the open air and smothered in spices. The smells never went away. Nutmeg, vanilla, ginger; as if the whole world was one huge dish for me to eat. These smells had to be so intense, to hide the other smell, of decay, right underneath them. It was a colourful, vagrant, and melodious world.
Therefore, the shock the Netherlands induced was all the more depressing. The grey skies, walls red like congealed blood, a lack of light, a lack of sound, the small room with the brown furniture in which I had to spend my days, potatoes and meat at every meal, boiled to grey spiceless nothingness; and nobody anywhere willing to talk to me.
I realise that the Dutch, coming to Indonesia, used to a sparse and orderly world, have the opposite experience. That to them, arriving in my country seems like a landing, just as my arrival to Holland was for me. I’ve been inside some of the Dutch houses, in Batavia, Bandoeng, Semarang, Soerabaja. Being there, you realise how afraid these people are of the land they’ve conquered, how they try to block it out, the sight, the sound, the smell, the heat. The build high houses with thick walls and few windows, and refuse to eat anything in their homes but their own traditional foodstuffs, so much inferior to ours. I might be able to feel for them, but I didn’t ask them to come.

I, on the other hand, had no choice but to come to the Netherlands. When I was twelve years old I was sent to a school in the city of Haarlem, as had been preordained at the time of my birth. I didn’t protest, because I did not yet know what it would be like. I thought the world was the same everywhere. I went to Haarlem; bizarrely, not even the worst place in that country to live. I was one of only a handful of coloured people on the ocean steamer. I arrived at the port of Rotterdam on a suitably grim day. My landlord, a teacher at the school, was waiting there to pick me up. There was a feeling of brownness about him; brown hair, brown trousers, brown moustache, brown trousers, brown shirt, brown shoes, brown socks. Only his skin was pale. Mr. Verweel. We employed him, paid him, to take me in, I’d been told. I had no way of recognising him, I was walking down the plankway, among well-to-do Dutch people. I had made sure I looked my very best, in suit, a little westerner. The assorted rich people never met my eyes.
The dock where our ship landed was right next to the dock from which the liners to America departed. Emigrants with shabby suitcases, not Dutchmen most of them, Germans, Eastern Europeans, Jews, watched breathlessly at our luxurious ship. A hint of a better world.
When we had disembarked, I had no chance of recognising Mr. Verweel: all the suits were the same, and the faces might have been the same as well. The brown man suddenly stepped up to me.
‘Are you Wonosobo?’ he asked, observing me through his glasses as if I was an insect under a microscope.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Mr. Verweel. Let’s go.’He didn’t offer a hand. He paid some boy a dime to carry my suitcases, and off we were, to the train station. He hid himself behind a newspaper, all the way to the town of Haarlem, while I observed the contours of my new home nation, and decided I wasn’t impressed with it.
I was never bullied when I was there. I was too strong, too mysterious. The first time I entered class, at the beginning of the year, I found myself a seat at the rear of the classroom. It was a chemistry class. I decided to observe. These were all boys from good families, all had servants in their homes, white servants. Servants who would speak to them as if they were kings, using the forms of politeness, and would never look at them directly. This first day was a battle of wills: I knew how servants behaved, and they would treat me like one, on account of my skin colour. I did not want their sympathy. I disdained of them, and knew they felt the same about me. Respect was all I could hope for.
They were a mixed bunch. There were some boys with dark hair, and dark eyes; but most of them adhered to the stereotype. Fair skin, brown or blond hair, and those cheeks that were so bizarrely rosy, something I’ve never found attractive. They were impeccably dressed, as I was, and all taller than me. The teacher, a nervous, bespectacled man, entered. We were all sitting silently, waiting in attendance. Although these boys were the sons of merchants and industrialists, the teacher still enjoyed a measure of respect. When he entered he walked past me first. He looked at me slyly, as if he didn’t want to acknowledge my existence, but was intent to keep tabs on where I was. I felt I didn’t need to be afraid of him. I surveyed the other boys as the teacher made his way to his desk. The last row had remained empty. After I had taken a seat there, nobody else dared to sit down there. None of the blushy pimply blue-eyed boys had even glanced at me. The teacher sat down, began to read out names.
‘ter Borg, Meerten.’ A nervous boy, even more red-faced than normal in this company, shrieked out a ‘yes’.
‘That’s from the north that name, isn’t it?’
‘Yes sir,’ the boy answered.
‘Carelse, Robert.’
Another yes, a pale boy with silvery hair.
‘Isn´t your father on the board of the Droste factory?’
‘Yes sir, that’s my father.’
And so it went until the teacher got to the letter V.
‘Vironosowo.’
He mis-pronounced it, made no apology.
‘Vironosowo,’ I repeated, putting the stress back where it belonged.
‘In this school, young man, we don’t talk back.’
‘But….’
‘Vironosowo,’ he repeated, mis-pronouncing the name once more. I knew when I’d lost.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
I was not addressed in that class as the chemistry lesson progressed. Nor was I looked back at. I sat alone at my table and took everything in: the elements, the teacher’s regressing hairlines, the meaty necks of my fellow students. I was a paying student, with a right to be there. But if I was to get anything out of my education, I would have to find it for myself.
There was something I found out, however. Being a servant or a master is a matter of mentality. Servants bow, go out of people´s way, don’t look their masters straight in the eye, speak with deference. Although the Dutch had paler skin, bluer eyes, and were taller and more muscular, this was not the reason they were our masters. Nor was their superior culture or intelligence; because that they didn’t have. It was purely a matter of mindset. And it was a mindset they hadn’t acquired naturally. They had looked at their neighbours, the French and the English most notably, and had adapted their attitude to the purpose. Mastery was like a poorly fitting suit to them. It was only in front of us, Indonesians, who didn’t know any better, that they could appear to be masters.

I adjusted my attitude accordingly. I can proudly proclaim: No, I never held open a door for a Dutchman. Whenever anybody I knew approached me, I would look them straight in the eyes, without giving any indication of recognising them, as if they were animals escaped from the zoo. If they would greet me (and they would only rarely do so) it would not take me long to make up my mind. Did this individual have sufficient respect for me? Had this individual ever attempted to be kind to me, in any way whatsoever? Had he? If so I would nod to him. If otherwise, a blank stare, perhaps some puzzlement, was all they might hope for from me. I was a product of my prosperous background. I had taken people for granted, and looked down on them without even realising it: the servants, the peasants, the vagrants, the tradespeople.
And now, here in this foreign country, I was treated with that same disrespect, and therefore I made a decision to invert my values. When I now walk the land back around Solo, my erstwhile fellow students would be hard-pressed to recognise me, on account of my kindness and my humbleness, and my sincere interest and feeling for the people I meet. It was there, in the town of Haarlem in the Netherlands, that I made my decision. I told myself: from now on I will treat my servants as if they are my masters, and my masters as if they are my servants.

Thinking of the Man Almayer

In A Personal Record, Joseph Conrad stated that, if he had not made the acquaintance of the individual whose name he spelled ‘Almayer’, ‘.....it is almost certain that there would never have been a line of mine in print.’ The real name of this ‘Almayer’ was Olmeijer, a Dutch trader living on the Berau river, on the Indonesian island of Kalimantan, then known as Borneo. It could be argued that this claim on the part of Conrad tended towards the hyperbolic. His biographer Jocelyn Baines also quotes this same line from A Personal Record, and then remarks: “This was paying Almayer too big a compliment, because when somebody is ready to write there will always be an Almayer to hand.” In fact, the line quoted by Baines is relatively understated, compared to some of Conrad’s other statements regarding Almayer. In the fourth chapter of A Personal Record, Conrad exposes a direct link between the life of ‘the man Almayer’, and his initial impulse to start writing. He claims, perhaps facetiously, that he never previously had the ambition of becoming a writer, and once more, he does not eschew hyperbole. “I admit that almost anything, anything in the world, would serve as a good reason for not writing at all.” But at the age of thirty-one, in between berths, occupying rooms in Bessborough Gardens, Pimlico, London, he nevertheless feels compelled to do so. Conrad attempts to downplay the event, while simultaneously ascribing immense significance to it. Writing is merely a way of killing time. He is bored: when not engaged on a ship, he has nothing to do. And then “.....in the necessity of occupying my mornings Almayer (that old acquaintance) came nobly to the rescue.” This remark stands in stark contrast to how he describes the impact of the event three chapters later. He tells us he was inspired to write a single page of about two hundred words. “...from the moment I had written that page........... the die was cast.” And a bit further down, with a somewhat pompous classical allusion: “Never had Rubicon been more blindly forded......” The ‘blindly’ connects to the idea that he did not, at this point, or so he claims, think of becoming a writer, or even of writing a single book. He cannot recall thinking of anything much at all at this fateful moment “.... though it is possible and even likely that I was thinking of the man Almayer.” Conrad claims that this moment, this event, seemingly insignificant at the time, is responsible for his career as a writer. “(Almayer)....... is responsible for the existence of some fourteen volumes, so far.”[1]

Beyond these emphatic remarks in A Personal Note, evidence of Olmeijer’s role is limited. Conrad does not mention him in other autobiographical writings. All the more reason for critics and biographers to take the remarks in A Personal Note with a grain of salt. In fact, Batchelor and Meyers do not even mention this remark in their biographies, even though Fletcher finds it important enough to mention in his monography on Conrad.[2]

Of course there is no possibility of verifying whether Conrad’s remarks on Olmeijer’s role are correct – whether or not the man really was as significant as Conrad claims in this one book. Nevertheless, these remarks are important enough to merit further attention.
Najder downplays the impact Olmeijer, and Borneo generally, had on Conrad´s writing. He sees Conrad´s using of the Malay environment in his early novels as a necessity emerging from his position as an immigrant writer in England. He could not write with confidence about other parts of the British empire that he had come to known, such as Autralia, Singapore, or England itself: his readership would know more about those places than him. Consequently, Borneo, which he did not know too well himself, was a part of the world he could bluff his way into. According to Najder, and in contrast to Conrad´s claims in A Personal Record, Conrad did not know Olmeijer well at all. The real Olmeijer was a succesfull businessman, who had eleven children, rather than just the one daughter featured in Almayer´s Folly.
In the absence of further personal testimony, the main source to turn to would be Conrad’s two early novels, Almayer’s Folly and An Outcast of the Islands. Clearly, the main character of Conrad’s first novel is Almayer, and he also plays a key role in the second one. There is also personal testimony that Conrad first met the prototype of Willems, protagonist of An Outcast of the Islands, at a dinner with Olmeijer “....... sitting at table with us in the manner of the skeleton at the feast, shunned by everybody......” Another character Conrad might not have invented without Almayer. There is no doubt that the meeting with Almayer provided Conrad with the themes he dealt with at the very beginning of his literary career. But the phrasing he uses in A Personal Record suggests that a great deal more was going on, at least when Conrad looked back on it at the moment when writing this text.

There is a possible clue at the end of An Outcast of the Islands. Conrad suddenly introduces a new character in Chapter IV of Part V, on page 359, eight pages from the end of the book. Here, Almayer has a conversation with ‘’’..... a chance visitor from Europe.” This man, a Rumanian, a failed scientist, and an alcoholic, and is described in some detail. It must seem unusual to introduce a new character at this late stage of the novel. The character is nothing but a caricature. He has scientific pretensions, quotes Latin phrases, and makes pompous announcements about how he sees the world. He is described as “the learned gatherer of orchids” and “the man who ought to have been a professor”. And instead of realising his ambitions, he ends up dead shortly after, in the ‘second white man’s grave in Sambir’, after that of Willems, the novel´s protagonist. As yet, Conrad’s famous irony is a blunt weapon.
None of the works I have consulted deal with this character at any length. He must seem too insignificant. Still, his presence in the novel must give some pause for thought. There is a wide range of European and partly European characters in the novel, and all of them are very loosely based on actual people.
Almayer is based on Olmeijer, even though the man and the character do not have a great deal in common.
There was a Willems, even though the character as he ended in the book is also based, in part, of various other people. Conrad met one person by the name of Lingard, and knew of another man by that name by reputation. Conrad used real people as the starting point for fictional characters. His career as a sailor meant he had a large number of very superficial encounters with very interesting people.
The Rumanian, insignificant as he may be, is bizarrely unaccountable. His role could have been filled by almost anybody. He is a sounding-board for Almayer´s closing reflections. In fact, a more experienced novelist might well have opted for a less flamboyant character for this purpose, who would not have distracted attention to the same extent. The available sources do not provide an answer. Even Norman Sherry, who has been most concerned with tracking down the real-life progeny of Conrad´s characters in the early novels, does not mention the Rumanian.
So what possessed Conrad to put him in? And where does this character, detailed as he is, come from?
There are various possibilities. Most likely, the character is a mixture of factors. Conrad was known to draw experience from books as well as real life. It is likely that there is a character either in a novel, or in a work of non-fiction, who would have provided elements that went into the creation of this Rumanian. Somewhere on his travels, Conrad might have met somebody like this Rumanian, who then went on to slip through the nets of Conrad´s major biographers.

Part of the answer could also be that the creation of this character was an exercise in grim self-parody on the part of Conrad. Conrad also had pretensions of grandeur, and was inclined to ridicule himself on this account. He was a ‘materialist’, a man who preferred a scientific worldview over a religious one. At an earlier stage of his life, he had the ambition to become an explorer. At the time when he travelled through Borneo, he would have appeared to be a half-educated Eastern European of great ambition and modest achievement, just like the Rumanian orchid-hunter . It could fairly be asked how many Eastern Europeans of that sort would make landfall in Borneo at any one time during the 1880s.
It would be merely a mystery with greater relevance, if not for the things that Almayer specifically says to this Rumanian, whom he seems to think of as being capable of answering certain questions.
“You, who say you have read all the books, just tell me..... why such infernal things are ever allowed. .......... Where’s your Providence? Where’s the good in all this? The world’s a swindle!.......”
Of course, the Rumanian does not have answers, and instead slides into a drunken stupor. [3]

He was a Roumanian, half naturalist, half orchid-hunter for commercial purposes, who used to declare to everybody, in the first five minutes of acquaintance, his intention of writing a scientific book about tropical countries. On his way to the interior he had quartered himself upon Almayer. He was a man of some education, but he drank his gin neat, or only, at most, would squeeze the juice of half a small lime into the spirit. He said it was good for his health, and, with that medicine before him, he would describe to the surprised Almayer the wonders of European capitals.

´I am a materialist,´ declared the man of science, tilting the bottle shakily over the emptied glass.

´The most rapacious thief I ever met!´ exclaimed the traveller thickly.

´De mortuis nil ni……. num,´ muttered Almayer´s guest.

´Don´t be angry,´ hiccoughed the other. ´It´s Latin, and it´s wisdom. It means; Don´t waste your breath in abusing shadows. No offence there. I like you. You have a quarrel with Providence – so have I. I was meant to be a professor, while – look.

The learned gatherer of orchids lifted his head.
´He was a sen – sentimen – tal old buc – buccaneer,´ he stammered out, ´I like him. I´m sent – tal himself.´

´Not I!´ said the other. ´No interest – in the sun – too tiring….. Unless you carry me there.´
As a matter of fact he was carried there a few months afterwards, and his was the second white man´s grave in Sambir; but at present he was alive if rather drunk.

The naturalist woke up, and sat all in a heap, staring owlishly,
´Here!´ went on Almayer, speaking very loud and thumping the table, ´I want to know. You, who say you have read all the books, just tell me… why such infernal things are ever allowed. Here I am! Done harm to nobody, lived an honest life…… Where´s the sense of all this? Where´s your Providence? Where´s the good for anybody in all of this? The world´s a swindle! A swindle! Why should I suffer? What have I done to be treated so?´

The man who ought to have been a professor made a tremendous effort to articulate distinctly: ´My dear fellow, don´t – don´t you see that the ba – bare fac – the fact of your existence is off – offensive. ……. I – I like you – like….´
He fell forward on the table and ended his remarks by an unexpected and prolonged snore.



Ian Watt about Almayer and Almayer´s Folly:

After relating some memories of their subsequent encounters – extending at most to four visits of a day or two each (Najder, pp. 97-98) – Conrad makes the singular assertion that ´if I had not…….´

The casually preposterous hyperbole is characteristic of how……

Still, why it should have been a few chance encounters with ´Almayer´ that precipitated Conrad into authorship is not easy to explain.

There is no first-hand testimony about Olmeijer´s character.

There (in A Personal Record) he is an extraordinary combination of ambitious dreamer and habitual defeatist.

Behind this lack of ambition, however, Conrad became aware of Almayer´s abiding sense of his own importance.

What he did find was probably the vast disparity between the extravagant hopes of Almayer´s inner life and the petty actualities of his achievement, a disparity which Conrad was familiar with, no doubt, in himself.

This kind of identification would at least be consistent with a passage in A Personal Record where Conrad imagines himself placating Almayer´s aggrieved shade for the ´very small larceny´ of his name, and for having given him a fictional incarnation which was ´not worthy of your merits´. At first, Conrad´s defense is jocular and ironical, but he goes on to disclaim any intention of mocking Almayer´s aspirations.


Works consulted:

Baines, Jocelyn, Joseph Conrad, A Critical Biography, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1986

Batchelor, John, The Life of Joseph Conrad, Blackwell, Oxford, 1994

Conrad, Joseph, Almayer´s Folly, Cambridge University Press, 1994

Conrad, Joseph, An Outcast of the Islands,

Fletcher, Chris, Joseph Conrad, Oxford University Press, Oxford,

Meyers, Jeffrey, Joseph Conrad, A Biography, John Murray, London, 1999

Najder, Zdzislaw, Joseph Conrad, A Chronicle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983

Sherry, Norman, Conrad´s Eastern World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1960,


[1] Joseph Conrad, A Personal Note, ‘A Familiar Preface’, ‘Chapter IV’, The University of Adelaide Library, eBooks,
Jocelyn Baines, Joseph Conrad, A Critical Biography, Penguin Books, London, 1960, p. 116-118
[2] Jeffrey Meyers, Joseph Conrad, a Biography, Murray, London, 1991,
John Batchelor, The Life of Joseph Conrad, Blackwell Critical Biographies, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1994,
Chris Fletcher, Joseph Conrad, The British Library Writer’s Lives, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, p. 44,
[3] Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands,Thomas Nelson & Sons, London, pp.359-367

The Death of Reinier Schultz

from the novel Whosoever slayeth Cain

That’s what I died with. That face. How his expressions changed over those last few seconds. Those dark bushy eyebrows, first curved with anger and hatred. Then relaxing, a moment of resignation. Why? Disappointment at my refusal to resist? But how could I have resisted him at that moment?

Perhaps I perceived his creeping fear that he had been wrong about life, and that, perhaps, none of this had been necessary. That it would have been possible to desist from killing me, and that such forbearance would also have allowed him to continue his life, in…. what? Serenity? Happiness? It was not an awareness he could have accepted, having come this far. Three shots are fired and I’m on my way.

I float over the city of Amsterdam. Winter is approaching, all the chimneys are smoking – the smoke being the product of central heating systems, rather than fireplaces. The canals look ready to freeze over in this weather, but I know they won’t. Seagulls accompany me. A moment of faint wistfulness, of nostalgia, but it passes. This is what I wanted; to die by the hand of a man, rather than by Your hand. And of all men, I wanted him to do the honours, him, more than anyone else.

And so I come to You, Lord. I smile at you. The purpose of my life has now been fulfilled. I have burned and suffered for You: I, have done what was necessary, but never for my own enjoyment, no, only for You. It has caused me hardship, but now I return to you, my work done. I arrive at your gates, behind which You await me, the Sovereign Ruler of everything, Complete and Complacent in Your Being.

Or that is what I believe, believed. So You must realize how surprised I am. It is all so different. Yes, You embrace me. You offer me Heaven, I deserve no less. I should have known, Lord, but I did not. I was not sufficiently aware of Your anguish. How could I have been? As we, mortal beings, wonder about our lives, and suffer from it, we forget Your suffering. We are lonely, yes, but the loneliness You experience is of a different order. We are afraid of death, and yet, we long to be released from our lives. For You, there is no release. You have everlasting life. We are not asked to sit in judgement on our own lives, because You are there to judge us. If we had to judge ourselves it would be a greater responsibility than we would be willing to take upon us. But you are in no position to refuse. You must judge Yourself as well as others.

Some praise you on this earth – but You always wonder whether their praise is genuine. Others raise their voice against You and use Your name idly. You have not aged since that first day, Lord, You have not grown up very much. You are still a sensitive little boy, and You will always remain so. You have no confidence in your own power, and You do not understand Your own creation. So here I am now, Reinier Schultz . And You embrace me – but You weep. You can see everything, You can hear people think, You can gauge their emotions, and yet You do not understand them. It must be terrifying to learn so much, and comprehend so little of it. And now you are calling on me to explain them, explain their emotions. Why? You even ask me to explain the story of my own life- half of which I didn’t even know before I came to You. You lay it before me and ask me to explain.

I’ll try, Lord. I realise You cannot understand the human race, in spite of all You know about it. Others have tried to explain the world to You before I have, and failed. As I will. So much I know. But I’ll try nevertheless. As I look out into the world, from up here, and wonder where to begin my story, I feel Your disquiet.

You have seen him come long before I became aware of his approach. You bristle. This is a man who insulted you more than most others did. A man who has made You feel his hostility. A man who made denying You his life’s work. I can see him too: the tall body, broad shoulders, always looking down, down, down to the earth, and never up, in order not to have to look You in the eyes, even though he would not be afraid to do so. No, if he could see You he would look at You with contempt. Yes. That gloomy visage, the irreplacable darkness of demeanour. I recognize him too. The man who killed me, yes indeed. May I introduce You to the man who killed me. Eduard Naaktgeboren.

Nakedborn and Son

from the novel Whosoever slayeth Cain

As my life’s work was pleasing to You, You have allowed me a place in heaven, Lord. And this Eduard Naaktgeboren, this man standing on your doorstep, who died shortly after killing me, deserves to be forgiven too. I will plead for him, Lord. We are different, I and he. He hated me, and in the end he killed me. I loved him like I loved myself.

Where does it begin? Perhaps with the death of that worthless man, Darko Stefanovic, a killing that sparked a chain of events culminating in the deaths of a number of other people, including me, and now also Naaktgeboren. But in a deeper sense, it all starts with him, with his beginning, his youth. And I wasn’t there at the time, I was a young crook in Amsterdam, still clueless. But I know his story now, and I thinking it over now, I can see them walking along that coast, grey skies overhead, with the cold sea waiting to the west. Father and son, walking through a landscape of rain and sand, without any vegetation that won’t prick or cut you when you touch it.

Most of the western coast of that country consists of a row of dunes that keep out the sea. My city, Amsterdam, would drown without them. The village where father Naaktgeboren was vicar was close to a gap in this defence, and this gap in the row of dunes had been filled up with an immense concrete dam. This was indispensable because the land lies beneath sea level, and would be washed away without this artifice.

Father Naaktgeboren was very much like his son is now. A pensive man, tall, muscular, light skin under dark hair, always seeming to move slowly. He would rarely smile. His son, the man outside Your gate, didn’t look one bit like him then. He was a juvenile blob of fat, healthy-looking if anything, cheeks still blushy: his hair must have been somewhat lighter as well. But judging by the sternness of the man walking next to him he must already have realised that life is a serious matter, and the world a cruel and empty place, with an unforgiving God hovering over it. They didn’t walk straight from the village to the dam, but instead took a detour through the dunes, over paths paved with crushed shells. They’d reach the sea at the point where the dam began, and would look out, contemplate it for a moment, then find their way back through the dunes again.

Once upon a time, on an unusually windy day, the old man decided his son stood to learn something.

‘Eduard,’ he said, ‘I want you to face the sea now. Close your eyes first.’

Young Eduard did as he was told. He felt the harsh wind on his face.

‘Taste your lips.’ Eduard licked his lips. ‘What does that taste like?’ his father asked.

‘It tastes salty.’

‘Good. Now face the sea again without closing your eyes. There’s something you must see and you can’t even blink or you’ll miss it.’

Young Eduard Naaktgeboren stood there, in the blazing storm, trying to keep his eyes open, the wind blowing foam and salt into them, making him feel as if a knife was plunged through his eyeballs. He had to cry but still he fought to keep his eyes open, until his father covered them with his hand.

‘You can close them now.’

As young Eduard’s tears dried, his father asked him what he had seen.

‘I didn’t see anything,’ Eduard said. ‘But I felt it, it hurt.’

‘That’s the power of the sea. God made the sea, and human beings made the dam and the low lying land behind it. God has ordained there too shall be sea. But the Dutch have refused Him. They have created a country where there should be waves. We, in the villages behind the dam, are good people, but in the cities, and especially in Amsterdam, the people are sinners. They do what they want, and God nor law will stop them. But one day the Lord will break the dam and flood the land to punish them.’

Walking back through the dunes, the gravity of this perspective made father Naaktgeboren even more taciturn than he had been on the way there. It was then that the young Naaktgeboren committed a sin.

Serial killers often have a history of such cruelty, burning ants with magnifying-glasses, trapping beetles with glue, pulling wings off flies. Eduard Naaktgeboren committed only a single such atrocity in his life. The dunes on the coast of Holland are an unspectacular natural environment. Too many changes, caused mainly by human beings, had eradicated the more elaborate life forms. Gritty survivors such as foxes and rabbits are the highest organisms in the dunes, grass and shrubs make up most of the vegetation. Still, even here, some creatures of extreme beauty can survive. After his lecture at the dam, Naaktgeboren’s father was preoccupied, and didn’t pay much attention to his son. He walked along, his son’s small hand in his big one, almost dragging him along, walking a little too fast, looking up at the sky at times, or at the ground, and into the distance, but not at his son. And the young Naaktgeboren, a late grower, a buxom little fellow, an angel, looked up at that tall gangling man, considering the lesson, and not saying anything, until his father spotted something among the thorny brushes.

‘Look, son,’ he said, pointing it out ‘contemplate this beauty. This is God’s creation, his gift to us, the reason we must be grateful he made us.’

Having indicated the flowers, he let his son’s hand slip and walked on with long slow steps, assuming his son would catch up after taking in this sight. The young Naaktgeboren wouldn’t have seen it if not for his father. Five breath-taking pink flowers contrasted beautifully with two caterpillars crawling over the plant’s leaves. They were larger than average, with a yellow-black skin pattern, like wasps or tigers, but totally without the aggressive predation inherent in those animals. It was an image of serenity.

He looked at it for moments more, tilted his head – no, his father wasn’t looking – and then, impulsively, without premeditation, swiped at the flowers in a single furious movement of his right hand, decapitating the plant and killing both the caterpillars. It took him a few moments to realize he had done it. For an instant he wondered what had become of that beautiful picture. Then he looked down at his right hand, and realized he was holding one of the flowers in it, severed from its stalk. He dropped it with a jolt.

His father was walking away in the distance, and the young Naaktgeboren ran to catch up with him, and walked along home ahead of him, looking away into the distance as his father did, with his guilt well–concealed. He was never cruel to animals again. For years he felt guilty for destroying life that was both innocent and beautiful. Then he firmly put guilt behind him. It was around that time that I came to know him.

It has been fifteen years now since Eduard Naaktgeboren started to make a name for himself in Amsterdam. I was already an established criminal. You know my story, Lord. You must have followed it with interest, or I wouldn’t be here. A child from a petty bourgeois family, showing signs of cleverness, going to a good school, then following his true calling. Establishing himself in Amsterdam, starting to make inroads into the burgeoning heroin trade, eliminating competitors, gaining control of the industry, expanding into other branches of crime as well.

Reinier Schultz. You know me. I can say, immodestly, that I have been one of your most faithful servants in this world. I don’t intend to sing my own praises, Lord, it’s Naaktgeboren I’m pleading for. I was intrigued by him almost from the very moment I heard of him. He was equipped with the quintessential talents necessary for a criminal career. He was ruthless, intelligent, complicated, and capable of anything. This was widely recognized, but there was also something only I had seen. Regrettably, I’ll never know what he would have been like if he had lived for another twenty or thirty years. He murdered me, and now he’s dead too. I jumped the gun – I ignited him, made him explode prematurely.

He was young and good-looking when I first met him. I think he would have turned viciously ugly by the age of fifty. There were indications of that. As for myself, my appearance has always been gregarious. I have looked like a sweet old man, a suitable grandfather, for a long time now. I wasn’t, but a casual observer could never have known, and that is because I didn’t have that fire that burnt in Naaktgeboren. I could imagine him as a fiery old man, everything about his face sagging, deep fault lines all across his face like his mother has, his mouth contorted in a never-ending snarl. He was a beautiful boy, with soft fluffy hair and baby fat spread uniformly over his face, tidily covering up jaws and cheekbones. But the hatchling must become a dragon. He was a man involved in a constant process of being created. That sweet beautiful boy was destined to turn into the ugliest meanest fifty-year old. And the Naaktgeboren I knew at the time when he killed me was about halfway there. The same transformation would have taken place in his character. All the softer aspects would have been chiselled away, the ruthlessness would remain.

Recently, he still displayed tenderness on some occasions. I find tenderness beautiful in many people, but in him I found it unbearable. He would sometimes listen with interest to complete strangers who wanted to tell him something. He could look at women as if they were much more than just pleasing slabs of meat. And sometimes he recoiled at the memory of some of his most gruesome acts. All this would be admirable in some people, but not in Naaktgeboren. Tenderness was not his calling.