My Life and My Efforts Part 8

At this point, watchman Gohler, due to his observation of my psychological condition, got the idea to take me into his bra.s.s-band, to see, if this might have a good effect on me. He asked the warden's office and received the permission. Then, he asked me, and quite naturally, I also did not say no. I joined the band. At that time, only the althorn happened to be available. I had never held an althorn in my hands before, but soon I joined in the best I could. The watchman was happy about this. He was even more happy, when he found out that I had learnt about compositions and was able to arrange musical pieces.

Immediately, he reported this to the Bible teacher, and the latter made me one of the church singers. So I was now a member of both the bra.s.s-band and the church corps and was busy in going through the available pieces of music and to arrange new ones. The concerts and the performances in church received, from now on, an entirely different character.

I have to mention that this musical work was not my main occupation. By no means, it caused me to be relieved from performing the same amount of work which any other prisoner had to do every day, if he wanted to avoid getting into trouble. This workload was not too much; everyone who is willing to work could make it. The skillful ones would even make it in a few hours.

Therefore, I was left with amply enough time for my compositions, which I did not even abandon, after I had been transfered out of the visitation of the wallet manufacturers. This was when they fulfilled my profound wish to be by myself.

Right from the start, when I had been committed, I had asked to be given a cell for myself; but a fulfilment of this wish had not been possible. Not until now, after the final psychological judgement had been made about me, I was transfered to the isolation building and received my room right next to the office of its inspector. He was a highly educated and humane gentleman, who was very conscious of his duties, and I became his personal clerk. This had been a job which had not existed up until this point. Let me here draw your attention to this psychologically meaningful point, that at the time of my commitment I had been completely unable to be a clerk, but was now regarded as capable, to perform the job of a clerk, which required great mental carefulness and insight and was the position of the highest confidence in the entire inst.i.tution. This is because, aside from being the head of the isolation building, my inspector's professional duties also included the preparation of written doc.u.ments. This work of his concerned the peculiar statistics of our inst.i.tution and the manner and the tasks of the penal system in general. He wrote the reports which dealt with his subject and was very busy corresponding with all outstanding men of the penal system. My task was to determine the statistical figures, to investigate their reliability, to compile and compare them, and finally to extract result out of them. Basically, this was a very hard, strenuous, and seemingly boring occupation with a set of lifeless numbers; but to piece these numbers together into characters and to breathe life and soul into these characters, to make them speak, this was most interesting, and I may very well say that I have learnt much, very much there, and that this work in my quiet, lonely cell has advanced my progress in understanding the psychology of mankind much further, than what I would have been able to achieve without this imprisonment. That, for this purpose, only the best and most reliable doc.u.ments were at my disposal, goes entirely without saying. There, I have learnt to understand the most peculiar things. There, I have looked into the deepest depths of human existence and seen things, which others will never see, because they are blind to them. There, I have realized that grandmother's fable was telling the truth, that there is a Jinnistan and an Ardistan, an ethical highland and an ethical lowland, and that the main movement, we all have to partic.i.p.ate in, is not downwards, but upwards, up, up towards liberation from sin, rising towards the n.o.bler state of the human soul. This realization has been the greatest blessing for me; it has even freed me as well. I have heard those voices, I talked about earlier, also in the cell, screaming inside of me. I have fought them, and I have always silenced them. They returned, though; they rose their voices again, but with longer and longer intervals, until I could finally a.s.sume, that they had become completely mute once and for all.

Furthermore, I had to manage the prisoner's library, and the official's library was also made available to me. The works collected in the latter were not at all just concerned with the criminal law and the penal system, but rather all fields of science were represented. I have not just read these delightful books, which were so rich in contents, but rather I have studied them and gained very much from them. And there were not just the volumes of the inst.i.tution's libraries, which were made available to me, but I was also happily granted the opportunity to access books from outside. I felt the irresistible desire, to use the quiet and undisturbed situation in my cell as much as possible to progress mentally, and the officials enjoyed in a.s.sisting me in this in every manner which did not contradict the inst.i.tution's regulations. Thus, the time of my punishment transformed for me into a time of studying, in which I found greater opportunities for being focused and greater possibilities for in-depth studies than any university student would ever find in freedom. I will say more about this great, inestimable benefit, which the imprisonment afforded me, later on. Even today, I am still in particularly grateful for the fact that I was not prohibited to obtain books on foreign grammar and to lay, by this, the actual foundation of my later traveller's tales, which are, as is well known, not based on any actual travels at all, but were meant to form an entirely different, up to this point untreated, genre.

But for now, it is not my intention, to elaborate on these studies of mine, but rather I have to concentrate here solely and in particular on the fact that the management of the prisoner's library, which I had been entrusted with, gave me the opportunity to make most important observations and experiences, under the influence of which my work as an author has taken on the shape in which it appears now.

In stating that I got to know what literature, or let me rather say reading material, the mentality of the general public desires, I am asking you to take this statement serious. It should not be said that each librarian in every public library and every rental library could make the same experiences, because this is not true.

A reader in freedom and a reader in prison, this are two entirely different characters. In the latter, reading can actually become a spiritual requirement for his existence. His nature is changing direction, it is turning around. The external personality no longer matters under the discipline of the inst.i.tution; the internal one emerges. And this is the one which has to be discovered and seized by the officials, by the system of reeducation in such an inst.i.tution, if the greatly humane purpose of punishment is to be realized: moral uplifting and consolidation, reconciliation between society and the so-called criminal, who have both committed a sin against one another. In freedom, this emergence of the internal personality is the exception, but in captivity it is the rule. During his imprisonment, the prisoner has to do without all of his physical privileges. In the physical respect, he is no longer a person, but just a thing, a number, which is registered in books and by which he is also addressed. Just the more strongly, yes even with an unstoppable vitality, his internal form, his soul emerges, to demand its rights, to satisfy its needs. The body is forced to put up with the prison's clothing and the prison's food. But do not dare to commit the mistake to restrict the soul in the same manner as well! Forcefully, it seeks to break out of the prison's clothing; famishedly, it demands a kind of food, by which it can become ethically sound and strong, to free itself from the bondage, in which it languished up to now. Believe me, no convict wishes to be evil; they all wish to be good. In the deepest bottom of his heart, everyone has the urge to be, not just physically, but also ethically, free, even the seemingly unreformable ones. But from what shall this naked, hungry soul receive good clothing and good food, meaning good in the ethical sense? From itself? From the sermons, held in the inst.i.tution every Sunday? From the few, short visits of the inst.i.tution's chaplain and other officials? From the companions.h.i.+p of the other prisoners? However you may answer these questions, the main source of all reeducation, improvement, and uplifting can under conditions like these only be the library. Each prisoner, who conducts himself in such a manner that he does not have to be forbidden to read, receives one book per week. For seven days, its contents provides the spiritual food for his famished soul.

He is not allowed to choose the book; he has to take what he gets. What he is given, can turn out to be his blessing or his misfortune, can enrich his knowledge or worsen his punishment, can lead him towards understanding himself and the errors of his ways, but it can also offend and harden him. One of my fellow prisoners, an intelligent banker, had, for three quarters of a year, received nothing but old issues of a magazine called "Fraundorfer Blatter" to read, dry instructions in gardening, which neither interested him, nor could benefit him in any way.

He put up with it, being increasingly embittered, until I got in charge of the library and gave him something more fitting to his needs. An actor, who was a hothead, was thus enraged by the tales of Jeremias Gotthelf, that he had almost been punished for improper behaviour. The last one he had to read bore the t.i.tle "How Five Girls Miserably Perish with Brandy" [a]. When I gave him a volume by Edmund Hofer [b], he was as happy as if I had given him a fortune. A social democratic plumber had been victimised my a long series of devotional books. He angrily swore to me that just for these books there could not be any G.o.d. He had only gone bankrupt due to his bitter poverty; but the authors and publishers of these scriptures were bankrupt due to self-righteousness and arrogance and deserved at least the same prison sentence as he.

[a] "Wie funf Madchen im Branntwein jammerlich umkommen" was published in 1838. Jeremias Gotthelf is a pseudonym for the Swiss author Albert Bitzius (1797-1854).

[b] Edmund Franz Andreas Hoefer (1819-1882).

From these examples you can see how well I first had to get to know my library and then also the needs of its readers. This involved some serious and difficult psychological considerations and led to the sad final conclusion that, basically, of the kind of books we needed there were only a very few. They were not just missing from our prison library, they were also missing from literature in general. I thought of my boyhood, of the little tracts I had read then and of the trash which had poisoned me; I thought further, and I compared. Then, a realization dawn on me.

Are only the inmates of the penitentiaries in confinement? Is not every human being basically a prisoner? Are not millions of people confined by walls, which might not be visible to the eyes, but the existence of which can nonetheless be felt just too well?

Does it only apply to the inmates of a penitentiary that the body has to be constricted, so that the higher part of our being, the part which came from above, shall reveal itself? Does it not apply to all mortals, and thus to all of mankind, that everything which is low has to be put in bondage, so that the soul, having gained liberty by such means, could uplift itself up to the highest ideal to be found on earth, to the n.o.bility of the spirit?

And are not religion, art, and literature those things which are supposed to guide us from these depths into those heights? The very literature, I, the prisoner confined to my narrow cell, am also a part of!

Proceeding with this train of thought, I arrived at considerations and conclusions, which might seem to be very strange, but were in their essence quite natural. A light shone between my four tight walls; they grew more s.p.a.cious. At first I felt, than I saw, and finally I understood the concealed and yet intimate connections between the small and the big, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the mind, the finite and the infinite. This was the time, when I started to comprehend those dear, old fables of my grandmother in their deepest meaning. For entire nights, I lay awake and pondered. I was chained to the deepest, lowest, most despised Ardistan and sent all of my thoughts up to the bright, free, Jinnistan. I imagined myself as the lost human soul, which can never be found again, unless it finds itself. This finding of one's true self can never be achieved high up in Jinnistan, but only down here in Ardistan, among the suffering of earth, the torment of mankind, eating the husks of the lost son [a] of our biblical story. My imagination started to put this what I was looking for into a tangible form, to be able to seize it and to hold on to it. It dwelled and lived within me. And not just there, but also outside of me, omnipresent, in every other human being, and also in the entire human race as one large and whole ent.i.ty. At this time, Marah Durimeh took form within me, this great, glorious soul of mankind, to which I gave the appearance of my beloved grandmother. At this time, Tatellah-Satah for the first time appeared within me, this mysterious "keeper of the great medicine", whom my readers got to know in the thirty-third volume [b] of my works. And at this time, the idea of "Winnetou"

was born as well. Do not get me wrong, it was just the idea, not really him, whom I did not find until later. In those days, the psychological volumes of the officials' library and all others which had been made available to me were - almost devoured, I was inclined to say; but this would not be the truth, because I have slowly a.n.a.lysed them, dissected them word by word, and have marked every word with a thoughtfulness, which is most likely not a very common thing; but I have done this so eagerly and with a hunger, with a zeal, as if my life, my salvation would depend upon me becoming fully aware of my internal condition. And when I finally thought that I was on the right path, I reached back into my childhood and turned back to my old, bold wish "to become a story-teller, like you, grandmother". After all, I was in in one of those places which are the greatest and richest sources of stories to tell, in prison. Here, all this gets condensed and concentrated which out there, in freedom, flows past so easily and thinly, that it cannot be seized and even much less be observed.

And here, the contrasts, which outside intermix like on a plane surface, rise high up like mountains, so that, in this magnification, everything is revealed which would otherwise remain concealed in secrecy. They lay opened up before me, those difficult, scientific volumes on psychology, especially on criminal psychology. Almost every line was impressed on my memory. They contained the theory, a conglomeration of riddles and problems. But what this meant in practice, I could see all around me in a truthfulness, which was just as plain as it was disturbing. What a contrast between theory and practice? Where was the truth to be found? In the opened books or in open reality? In both! Science is true, and life is true. Science commits mistakes, and life commits mistakes. Both of these ways lead via mistakes towards the truth; there, they will have to meet. Where this truth is and what it says, we can only guess.

Just one eye is granted the gift to glimpse ahead at it and this is the eye of - - the fable. Therefore I want to be a stroy-teller, nothing but a story-teller, just as grandmother was!

I only need to open my eyes, to see them recorded, hundreds and hundreds of incarnations of these parables and salvation seeking fables. One in every cell and one on every chair in the workshops. Lots of sleeping beauties, who are just waiting for the kiss of mercy and love to wake them up. Lots of souls, languis.h.i.+ng in bondage, in old castles, which had been converted into prisons, or in modern huge buildings, in which kindness goes from cell to cell, from chair to chair, to wake up and to free, whoever proves himself to be worthy of the awakening and of freedom. I want to be the mediator between science and life. I want to tell parables and fables, with the truth being hidden deeply inside, the truth which by other means cannot be perceived, yet. I want to derive light out of the darkness of my life in prison. I want to convert the punishment, which has come upon me, into freedom for others. I want to turn the severity of the law, under which I suffer, into a great sympathy for all those who have fallen, into a love and mercy, to which there will finally be no "crime" and no "criminals", but only the sick, again and again nothing but the sick.

[a] "the lost son": see Luke 15:24: "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

[b] "Winnetou IV", a.k.a. "Winnetous Erben"

But no one may suspect, that my stories are only parables and only fables, for if it was known, I would never achieve what I intend to achieve. I have to become a fable myself, I, my own self.

This will surely be a boldness, which might easily ruin me, but what does the fate of one single, small human being matter, when the subject is the great, hugely arising question facing the entire human race? What matters the tiny fate of a despised prisoner, who is anyhow already lost to society, if the manner in which "crime" is regarded and discussed does not change soon!

This was a thought which came to me quite suddenly, but sunk in deeply and never left me again. It gained power over me; it became large. It finally encompa.s.sed my entire soul, which was probably because it contained the fulfilment of all this, which already, since my childhood, lived as my wish and hope within me.

I seized it, this thought; I extended and deepened it; I elaborated on it. It had me, and I had it; we both became identical. But this did not happen quickly, it rather took a long, long time, and even harder and more dreary days than the present ones pa.s.sed by, before I had developed the plan of my work and had it such firmly fixed, that no further change was to be made to it. I planned to continue writing my humorous stories and village-tales from the Ore Mountains for a while, to make a name for myself among the German readers and to show them that I was absolutely just moving on G.o.d-fearing territory. But then, I wanted to turn to a genre, the public was interested in, and possesses the greatest ability to make an impression: to the traveller's tale. To make real journeys the basis of these tales, was no absolute necessity; after all, they were only meant to be parables and only fables, though extraordinarily meaningful parables and fables. Nevertheless, journeys were desirable, to conduct studies, to get to know the various circles in which my characters had to move. Most of all, I had to prepare myself thoroughly, study geography, ethnology, and languages. I had to take my topics from my own life, from the lives around me, from the place where I was at home, and therefore, I could always maintain truthfully that everything I told about was experienced or witnessed by myself. But I had to move those topics out into distant lands and to foreign peoples, to give them the effect they would not have dressed in the familiar garments of home. Set in the prairie or under palm-trees, in the glistening sun of the orient or in raging blizzards of the Wild West, in perils which would evoke the reader's strongest compa.s.sion, thus and in no other way all of my characters had to be depicted, if I was to achieve through them what they were meant to achieve. And for this purpose, I had to be, at least theoretically, as much at home in all of those countries which I had to describe as a European could possibly be able to. So I had to work, to work hard and exhaustingly, to prepare myself; and for this, the quiet, undisturbed prison cell, I lived in, was just the right place.

There is a truth of earth, and there is a truth of heaven. The truth of earth is presented to us by science, the truth of heaven by revelation. Science usually proves its truthfulness; what a revelation a.s.serts, the learned will regard as nothing more than believable, but not as proven. Such a true revelation from heaven descends down to earth on the rays of the stars and goes from one house to the next, to knock and to be allowed to enter. It is rejected everywhere, because it wants to be believed, but it is not believed, because it possesses no learned proof of validity.

Thus it goes from one village to another, from one town to another, from one country to another, without being listened to and without being accepted inside. Then, it ascends back up to heaven on the rays of the stars and returns to the one from whom it came. Weeping, it laments before Him of its pains. But He smiles kindly and speaks: "Do not weep! Go back down to earth and knock at the door of that one person, whose house you have not found, yet: the poet. Ask him to dress you into the guise of a fairy-tale, and then try your luck again!" It obeys. The poet lovingly takes it on and dresses it up. It now begins its journey once again as a fairy-tale, and wherever it knocks, it is welcome.

The doors and hearts are opened for it. Its words are attentively listened to; it is believed. It is asked to stay, because it has become so dear to everyone. But it must go on, on and on, to fulfil the task it had been given. But it only leaves as a fairy-tale; as the truth, it stays. And even though it is not seen, it is nevertheless there and works its influence within the house for all times to come.

So, this is the fairy-tale! But not the kind of fairy-tale for children, but rather the true, genuine, real fairy-tale, the fables and legends, which are in spite of their unseeming, simple appearance the highest and most difficult of all forms of fiction, due to the soul which lives within each tale. And one of those poets, to whom the eternal truth would come, to be dressed up, I wanted to be! I know very well, how bold this was. But I admit it without apprehension. Truth is so much hated, and the fairy-tale is so much despised, as I am myself; we are a good match. The fairy-tale and I, we are being read by thousands, without being understood, because the depth is not explored. As they say that fairy-tales were only for children, so I am referred to as "author for young people", who would only write for immature boys. In short, I need not apologise at all for having been so bold to wish for nothing more than to be an author of fables and parables. Do not "my life and my efforts" by themselves already seem rather like a fairy-tale, and are there not almost innumerable fables and fairy-tales, my opponents have build up around me! And whenever I protest against this, I am believed just as little as some people believe in the fairy-tales. But as for every genuine fairy-tale, there will finally come the time, when its truth will be evident, so all of my truth will eventually become evident, and what they do not believe from me today, they will learn to believe tomorrow.

Thus, all of my traveller's tales, which I had intended to write, were meant to be read figuratively, were supposed to be symbolic.

They were meant to say something which was not visible on the surface. I wanted to bring something new, something blissful, without putting my readers at variance with the old, the previous.

And what I had to say, I had to make them look for; I could not lay it openly before their doors, because people tend to ignore everything they get so cheaply and only appreciate what they had to fight for with great effort. It would have been an unforgivable mistake, to hint right from the start, that my traveller's tales were to be read figuratively. My books simply would not have been read, and everything I wanted to solve would have remained a fable and a fairy-tale. The reader had to find unsuspectingly what I had to give; he would then regard it as a prize he had fought for and hold on to it for the rest of his life.

But what was this, actually, I wanted to give? This was many things and nothing commonplace. I wanted to answer the questions of mankind and solve the mysteries of mankind. Laugh at me if you will; but this was what I wanted; I have tried it and I will continue trying it. Whether I will achieve it, neither I nor anybody else would be able to know. In carrying out my plan, I might have committed many a mistake, because I am just a flawed human being; but my intentions have been good and pure.

Furthermore, I wanted to publish my psychological experiences. A young teacher, who has been punished, talking about his psychological experiences? Is this not even more ridiculous than the first plan? You may think so if you will; but I have seen in hundreds and hundreds of unfortunate people that the only cause for the beginning and continuation of their misfortune had been that their souls, those most precious ent.i.ties of the entire creation of earth, had been completely neglected. The mind is the spoiled, conceited teacher's pet, the soul is the rejected, starving and freezing Cinderella. For the mind, there are all kinds of schools, from the simple primary school up to the university, but there is not a single school for the soul. For the mind, millions of books are written, but how many are there for the soul? To the human mind, thousands and thousands of monuments are built; where are those, which are dedicated to the praise of the human soul? Well so, I am saying to myself, let me be the one writing for the the soul, exclusively for the soul alone, no matter whether I will be laughed at for it or not! The soul is unknown. Therefore, many people will either not understand or misunderstand my work, but this should by no means keep me from doing what I had planned.

This was basically enough for one person; but I did not want just this, I even wanted much more. All around me, I saw the deepest misery of mankind; to myself, I was was its centre. And high above us was the salvation, was the n.o.ble state of the human soul, we had to aspire up to. But this task was not just ours alone, but rather it had been given to all of mankind; the only difference was that we, who were staying in a so much deeper place than the others, had to ascent much further and with more difficulties then they. From the depth into the height, from Ardistan to Jinnistan, from a low, l.u.s.tful person, rising to become a n.o.bly spirited person. How this had to happen, I wanted to demonstrate by two examples, one in the orient and one in America. For these, my very special purposes, I divided earth in my mind in two halfs, in an American and an Asian-African half.

There lives the race of the native Americans and here Semitic-Mohammedan race. I wanted to make these two races the subjects of my fables, my thoughts, and explanations. Therefore, my primary task was to learn about the Arabian and other languages as well as the native American dialects. The steadfast faith in Allah on the one side and the highly poetic faith in the "great, good spirit" of the others, fitted well with my own, firm faith in G.o.d. In America, a male character, and in Asia, a female character were to represent the ideal, by whose example my readers had to let their ethical intentions grow upwards. The one character became Winnetou, the other one Marah Durimeh. In the west, the plot shall rise, by and by, from the low life of the savanna and prairie up to the pure and lofty heights of Mount Winnetou. In the east, it shall uplift itself from the dunes of the desert up to the hight summit of Jebel Marah Durimeh.

Therefore, my first volume starts with the t.i.tle "Durch die Wuste"

. The main character of all of these tales was, for the sake of unity, supposed to be always the same, a n.o.ble human soul in his earliest stages, who cleanses himself by and by from all the dross of an anima-person. For America he was supposed to be called Old Shatterhand, but for the orient he was to bear the name Kara Ben Nemsi [a], because I took for granted that he would have to be a German. He had to be introduced as the one telling the stories, as the "first person narrator". This first person is not real, but a fictional character. But even though this "first person" does not exist, everything which is being related about him shall still be based in reality and become reality. This Old Shatterhand and this Kara Ben Nemsi, this "first person" is meant to portray this great question of mankind, which was created by G.o.d himself, when he walked through paradise, to ask: "Adam, i.e. human being, where are you?" "n.o.bly spirited human, where are you? I only see fallen, low people!" This question of mankind has since then gone through all times and all countries of the globe, calling out loudly and lamenting loudly, but never receiving an answer. It has seen people of violence by the millions, fighting, mangling, and annihilating one another, but it never saw a person with a n.o.ble soul, who was like the inhabitants of Jinnistan and lived by their wonderful law, that everyone had to be his neighbour's angel, so that he shall not become his own devil. But eventually, mankind must and will nonetheless rise to such a hight, that this question, which had been asked in vain before that time, will receive its bliss bringing answer from somewhere: "Here I am. I am the first n.o.bly spirited person, and others will follow after me!" Thus, Old Shatterhand also travels and thus Kara Ben Nemsi also travels through those countries, to look for n.o.bly spirited people. And wherever he finds none, he gives an example through his own n.o.bly spirited behaviour, how he thinks such a person would have to be like. And this fictional Old Shatterhand, this fictional Kara Ben Nemsi, this fictional "I", does not need to remain fictional, but has to manifest himself, has to become reality in my readers, who are experiencing in their minds and souls everything just as he does, and who therefore, like my characters, are rising up and enn.o.bling themselves. In this manner, I am contributing my part to solve this great task of enabling the violent people, who are the people on a low level, to develop into the n.o.bly spirited people.

[a] In "Through the Desert" the main character is introduced by his sidekick to a third person by this name. The first person narrator then explains it like this: "The good man had at one time before asked me for my name and actually kept the word Karl in his memory. But since he was unable to p.r.o.nounce it, he, without thinking much of it, turned it into Kara and added Ben Nemsi, meaning descendant of the Germans."

While considering these thoughts in my mind, I felt very well that I, by carrying them out, would put myself in a danger which was not to be taken lightly. What if this fictional self would not be understood and the meaning of this "first person narrator" would not be comprehended? What if they would believe that I was referring to myself? Was is not obvious that everybody who lacked the intelligence or good will to distinguish between fiction and reality, would call me a liar and a swindler? Yes, this was indeed possible, but I did not regard it as probable. After all, I had to equip this "first person narrator", this Kara Ben Nemsi or Old Shatterhand, with all of the good attributes which mankind had achieved up until this day in the course of its development.

My hero had to possess the highest intelligence, the deepest heart, and the greatest skillfulness in all physical exercises.

Did it not go entirely without saying that in reality, this could never all be found in a single human being! And if I, as I intended to do, would write a series of thirty to forty volumes, it could certainly be presumed, that no reasonable man would get the idea, that a single person could have experienced all this.

No! The accusation that I was a liar and a swindler was, at least for people who think, entirely impossible! This was how I thought then. Yes, I was even firmly convinced that, though I did not describe myself in this "first person narrator", I could nevertheless maintain with a clear conscience that I had experienced or witnessed the contents of these narrations myself, because they were taken from my own life or at least from my closest environment. It was not at all difficult on me, but rather very easy, and most of all also interesting, to imagine that though Karl May writes those traveller's tales down, he does it in such a way, as if they were not the product of his own mind, but as if they were dictated to him by this fictional "first person", which is the great question of mankind. Whether this a.s.sumption of mine was right, the future will soon show.

The intention to give some of my characters native American and some of them oriental features led me quite naturally to a deep sympathy for the fate of those peoples. The extinction of the red race, which had been described as unstoppable, started to occupy my mind constantly. And about the ingrat.i.tude of the occident against the orient, to which it owes its entire material and mental culture, I had all kinds of serious thoughts. The welfare of mankind demands that there shall be peace between the two, no more exploitation and bloodshed. I was resolved to constantly emphasise this in my books and to kindle in my readers the love for the red race and for the inhabitants of the orient which we owe them as fellow human beings. These days, I am a.s.sured that I have not just achieved this in a few, but in hundreds of thousands, and I am inclined to believe this.

And now here is the main question: For whom were my books meant to be written? Quite naturally for the people, for the entire people, not just for single parts of it, for single cla.s.ses, for single age-groups. Most of all, they were not solely meant for the young people! I have to put the greatest weight and the sharpest emphasis on this latter statement. If it had been my intention to be or to become an author for young people, I would quite necessarily have had to give up on executing all of my plans and on achieving all of my ideals for ever. And to do this, has never crossed my mind. It is true that I also had to think of the young generation, because they form, not just in a temporal sense, the first stage of the people; they are not just the ones who constantly replenish the people, but they are also the ones who will have to lead the way in the uplifting of mankind for the old and the lazy, to occupy the the terrain, discovered by our pioneers, at the quickest pace. But just as they only form a part of the people, this with what I had to address them could also be just a part of what I wrote for the people as a whole. When I say that I wanted to write for the people, I mean mankind in general, no matter how young or how old they may be. But not every one of my books is meant for every person. And yet again, it is for every person, but one after another, depending on whether he develops forward, depending on how much older and more experienced he has become, depending on whether he has gained the ability to understand and to comprehend their contents. My books shall accompany him through his entire life. He shall read them as a boy, a youth, an adult, an old man, at every one of these ages, he shall read what corresponds with the level of experience he has gained. He shall do all this slowly, with thoughtfulness and consideration. He who reads my books indiscriminately and too quickly, is perhaps to be pitied; but at any rate, it is even more of a pity for them! He who abuses them, shall not hold me or them responsible, but only himself. Let me just remind you of smoking, of eating and drinking. Smoking is an indulgence of pleasure. Eating and drinking is a necessity. But to smoke, to eat, to drink anytime, and to smoke and to devour everything available, would not just be foolish, but even harmful. Good, interesting literature shall be savoured, but not be devoured like by a shark! Since my books contain nothing but parables and fables, it goes without saying that the reader is supposed to think about them thoroughly and that they only belong into the hand of people, who are not just able to think about something, but also willing to do so.

At this time, when I had considered these ideas and made my plans, I had already written and published various things, but I would not have dared to call myself an novelist or even an artist yet.

And does not every real novelist have to be an artist as well. I did not even regard myself as a proper apprentice in this business, but only as a beginner, who is not a part of this business, but just groping his way, like a child trying to take his first steps. And in spite of this all, I already made plans, covering so much ground, extending so far into the future!

Looking over these plans, I ought to have become pretty scared, because undoubtedly, it had to take several men's lives full of work, without disturbances, and without misfortune, to cope with this task I was facing in a genuinely literary, which is to say artistic, fas.h.i.+on. But still, I did not become scared, I rather remained very calm through all of this. I was asking myself: Is it really necessary to be a novelist, and to be an artist, to be allowed to write these kinds of things? Who would want and who could forbid someone to do it? Let's do it without the established world of literature, if it will only turn out right!

And let's do it without art, if it will only have its effect and achieves what it is supposed to achieve! Whether novelists and artists would accept me as a "colleague", I had to ignore then.

Though, I had my individual pride just as anybody else, and I had the highest possible opinion of art. But these thoughts of mine were different than other people's thoughts, especially those of my fellow authors. To be an artist, stuck me as being the highest thing to be on earth, and deeply within my heart, there lived the ardent wish to reach these heights, even if it should not be until the final hour before my death. That night when I got to see the "Faust" as a child, still lived unforgotten in my soul, and the resolutions I had made under its impression still possessed the very same willpower and the same hold over me as before. To write for the theatre! To write dramas! Dramas, which show how man shall and can rise up from the sufferings of earth to the joys of existence, from the slavery of the low urges to the purity and greatness of the soul. To be able to write something like this, it is necessary to an artist, not just any artist, but a genuine and true one. But all of my conceptions of art were something entirely different than this what today's critics describe as art; and thus I was left with no other choice than to postpone all of my wishes, which concerned me being allowed to be an artist in literature, an artist who is a true, valuable artist, for many, many long years and to remain until then what I was at the time, a beginner, who is not a part of the established business, and who made no pretension to becoming a member of it. As I had always been, as long as I had lived, by myself and lonely, I was already then convinced, that my path as an author would also be a lonely one up to the end of my life. What I was looking for, could not be found in daily life. What I wanted was something absolutely beyond a common person. And what I deemed right, was most probably wrong for other people. Furthermore, I could not forget that I was a convicted criminal. Therefore, to stay entirely to myself and not to bother any more valuable people with my presence, seemed to be the natural thing to do. I was no expert on art. Perhaps, the others were right; I could be mistaken. In any case, my ideal kept me going: In the end of my life, once I was fully matured, a great, beautiful work of poetry was to be created, a symphony of redeeming thoughts, in which I ventured to produce light out of my darkness, happiness out of my misfortune, joy out of my torment. This was for later, when death will first announce his presence. But for now, my job was to learn, to learn a lot and to prepare myself for this great project, so that it would not fail. Now, I would write fables and parables, in order to extract the truth and the reality out of them in the end of my life and to put these onto the stage!

But these parables are not short texts like, for example, those wonderful parables of Christ, but long narratives, in which many characters appear and act out their parts. And they are numerous; they were meant to fill a large number of volumes and supply the material for that other great task, later on, with which I want to conclude my work. Thus, they cannot be carefully executed paintings, but only pen-and-ink drawings, only sketches, first exercises, etudes [a], which must not be measured by those standards which only apply to genuine works of art. I am neither able, nor willing, nor allowed to be another Paul Heyse [b], who has achieved perfection in this art, but rather my task is to chisel crude blocks of marble and alabaster from highly situated quarries, to be used in subsequent works of art, the shape of which I cannot more than hint, because the time to create them is not yet available to me. I give these very hints in these fables, which are interjected into my narrative parables and form the spots on which the interest of the reader is concentrated.

Therefore, art critics do not need to deal with my traveller's tales, because it is not my intention at all to give them an artistic form or even perfection. They have to be like the simple, plain arm- and foot-bracelets of the Arabian women, which are meant to be nothing more than silver rings. Their value is in the metal, not in the work. A painter, hastily drawing sketches in preparation for a great painting, would surely be astonished by a critic, measuring these sketches by the same standards, he would then later have to use on the painting.

[a] etudes: studies, exercises (French) [b] Paul Heyse (1830-1914) won the n.o.bel Prize for literature in 1910.

This is all I want to say right now about these plans, which formed within me at this time and from which I did not depart and which I have carried out up until this day. They did not appear suddenly, and they did not appear all at once, but slowly, one after another. And they did not mature quickly, but it took months and years, until I had fully decided on one aspect after another. But I also had enough time for this. I have made a kind of agenda of my plans and their execution; I have kept it as a sacred treasure and still possess it today. Every thought was dissected into its parts, and every one of these parts was written down. I even made a directory of the t.i.tles and the contents of all these traveller's tales, I wanted to tell. Though I did not precisely go by this directory, it was nevertheless very useful to me, and I still benefit today from topics which had already then taken form within me. I also wrote busily; I wrote ma.n.u.scripts, to have as much material as possible, to be published right after my release. In short, I was enthusiastic about my project and, though I was a prisoner, I felt infinitely happy about the prospects for a future, which promised to become an not entirely ordinary one, as it seemed I had every reason to hope.

Destiny seemed to agree with my intentions. It granted me, as if it wanted to compensate me for all the suffering, a rich, highly welcome gift: I was pardoned. The warden's office had applied for clemency on my behalf, due to which my prison term was reduced by a full year. My conduct was evaluated with the highest mark and I received an attestation of my trustworthiness, which eased my way back into life outside and spared me from all kinds of trouble with the police. He who knows about these things, will be able to appreciate what this means!

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, when I left the inst.i.tution, armed with my ma.n.u.scripts to fight the obstacles of life. I had written home, to inform my family about my return. How was I looking forward to this reunion. I had no reason to be afraid of accusations; this had already been settled in letters. I knew that I was welcome and that I would not get to hear a single word which would hurt me. Most of all, I was looking forward to seeing grandmother. How much must she have worried and grieved! And how much would she want to extend her old, dear, faithful hand to me.

How delighted would she be about my plans! How much would she help me to carry them out and to get as much as possible out of them! I went from Zwickau to Ernstthal, this was precisely the way I had gone that time as a boy, to seek help in Spain. You can imagine what thoughts accompanied me on this way. On that way home with my father, I had promised myself never to sadden him with something like this again; but how badly had I kept my word!

Should I make similar resolutions today, the fulfilment of which could never be guaranteed due to the powerlessness of man? The "fable of Sitara" appeared before me. Could it be that I was one of those whose souls were received at birth by the devil, to be hurled into misery, so that they would be lost? All resistance and rebelling is useless; they are doomed. Does this apply to me as well?

My thoughts became more and more gloomy, the closer I came to my home. I felt, as if evil premonitions were coming at me from this direction. It seemed as if my joyful confidence was trying to leave me; I had to try hard to hold on to it. From the Lungwitzer hill, I looked over the small town. There before my very eyes, were those winding paths, I used to walk so often, while desperately struggling with those frightful inner voices, calling out to me day and night without pausing these words: "the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse". And what was that? While thinking of it, I heard the very same voices echoing within me, very clearly, as I used to, only from a far, but they seemed to get closer, "the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse!" Was this supposed and willing to start all over again? A sudden fear came over me, a fear as I had never felt before, and I hurried away from this place, away from this memory, down the hill, through the town, home, home, home!

I arrived sooner than I had been expected. My parents still lived on the first floor of the same house. I walked up one flight of stairs and then another to the attic, where grandmother had always liked spending her time the most. I wanted to see her first and only then father, mother, and the sisters. Then, I saw the few things she had owned; but she was not there. There was her chest, with blue and yellow flowers painted on it. It was locked, the key was not in the lock. And there was her bed; it was empty. I rushed downstairs into the living-room. There sat my parents. The sisters were absent. They were considerate. They had thought, the parents had the right to go first. I did not even greet them, but asked where grandmother was. "Dead - - - deceased!" was the answer. "When?" "Last year." Hearing this, I fell onto a chair and lay my head and arms on the table. She was no longer alive! It had been kept from me, to spare me, to avoid making the imprisonment even harder on me. These might have been rather good intentions; but now it hit me just the more powerfully. She had not been really sick; she had just simply pined away, because of the grief and suffering for - - - me!

It took a long time, before I rose my head again, in order to greet the parents now. They were startled. Later, they told me that my face had looked worse than that of a corpse. The sisters joined us. They were happy about the reunion, but they looked at me so strangely, so timidly. This was nothing else but a reflection of my own face. Though I tried my best, I could still not fully conceal the blow which had just hit me. I wanted to know only things about grandmother for now, nothing else, and they told me. She had talked a lot about me, but never a single word which would necessarily have offended me, if I had been present.

And she had never complained or even wept. She had said that now she knew that I was one of those souls which had been hurled over to the wrong side at their births, to be destroyed there. Now, she was convinced that I had to go through the spirits' furnace, to suffer all the torment of earth. But she knew that I would not scream, I would bear what I had to bear, and force my way up to Jinnistan. The closer she came to death, the more exclusively she only lived in her world of fairy-tales, and the more exclusively she talked about nothing else but me. On one of her final days, she said that the cantor, who had died a long time before, had been with her that night. He had been our neighbour. Those two houses were connected. Then, she said, the wall had suddenly opened in the darkness and a bright light had filled the room, but it was no ordinary light, but rather a light she had never seen before. Lit by this light, the cantor had appeared. He had looked just as he used to when he was still alive. Slowly, he had come up to her bed, had greeted her with a friendly smile, as he had always done, and then, he had said that she should not worry about me at all; I might very well fall as anybody else, but I could not stay down; I would be given a hard time, but I would surely reach my goal. Having said these words, he again nodded at her in his friendly manner and left just as slowly as he had come, back trough the gap in the wall. It closed behind him. The light disappeared; it became dark again.