Lost honour

This short story by Friedrich Schiller has made his fame as a sensitive as well as a humanist writer. It tells about the descent to hell of a landlord�s unfortunate son and his emancipation from a life of crimes. In this excerpt, he claims that we all pos

Friedrich Schiller: The man who became a criminal because he lost his honour.  

      A true story Translated from German by J. Marc Rakotolahy

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In the whole human history, there is not a more informative chapter for the heart and the spirit than the annals of one’s own mistakes. For, in every major crime, a proportionately great force was set into movement by its perpetrator. If the secret game of covetousness remains hidden beneath the weaker light of common affects, hence, it will be more expressive, more colossal, louder, under the condition of violent passion, the finer human researcher who knows, how much one may, specifically, in that respect, reckon with the mechanics of the human freedom and how widely one can make conclusion based on analogical principles, this finer human researcher will bring many experiences, made in this area, into his spiritual teaching and will use them to work on his moral life.

 

The human heart is something so uniform and yet, has so many various aspects. The one and same skill or desire can be displayed in thousand forms and directions, it can act on thousand contradicting phenomena, can appear differently in thousand characters, and thousand dissimilar characters and actions can again be derived from the same inclinations, especially, if the human being, about whom we are now discussing, presumes nothing of such a relatedness. Then appeared, once, a Linnaeus who also classified the human kind in the same way as the other species of Nature, according to its impulses and inclinations: how much one would be astonished to find, together in the same classification of the monstrous Borgia, so many people whose vice must be contained, now, in the new sphere of citizenry and in the narrow limitation of the laws!

 

Considered in that aspect, a lot can be used against the usual organization of historical facts, and here, I suppose, lies also the difficulty which prevent the study of the same historical facts to be yet fruitful for the life of the citizens. Between the fervent mental agitation of the active man and the calm disposition of the reader, to whom this organization will be produced, such an incongruous contrast dominates, such a broad interval exists, that it is difficult, indeed, almost impossible for the reader, to presume only of a cohesion between them. Between the historical subject and the reader, there remains a vacuum which removes from the reader any possibility of comparison with himself or any application in his life and instead of arousing this salutary fright which is a sign of the proud vitality, it arouses only a nod of confusion.

 

We consider the unfortunate person as a creature of a different kind who, hence, precisely, in the hour, where he committed the act, as much as in the one where he repents for the same act, was a human being like us but whose blood runs differently than ours, whose willpower follows other rules than ours; his destiny moves us lesser, for, our emotion for him grounds itself, indeed, only on a shadowy awareness of a similar danger in ourselves and of which we are far from only guessing the existence. The lesson is wasted because of the remoteness of the reader from the subject and History, instead of being a school of education, must content itself with performing a miserable service to our inclination.

 

Should it represent more to us and reach its great, final goal, hence, it must choose necessarily one of these two methods – either the reader must become as inspired as the hero, or the hero must become as uninspired as the reader. I know that from the best story tellers of recent times and from Antiquity, many keep themselves to the first method and have fascinated the heart through pleasant talk. However, this manner of proceeding is a usurpation on the writer’s side and damages the republican freedom of the public who reads, who happens to be, in this instance, the judge; it is, at the same time, an offence to the rule of delimitation, for, this method belongs exclusively and specifically to the speaker and the poet. To the story teller remains only the last method.

 

The hero must become as uninspired as the reader, or, equally said, here, we must acquaint ourselves with him, before he acts; we must not only complete his action, but rather also must want to see it. In his thoughts lies, for us, infinitely more than in his acts, and still much more lies in the sources of his thoughts than in the consequences of each of his act. If people have searched the soil around the Vesuvius in order to explain its eruption; why should people offer less attention to a moral appearance than to a physical one? Why do people care not, in equal degree, to examine the condition and place which surrounded a man, until the gathered material ignited passion in his inner being?

 

The dreamer who loves the wonderful, is attracted precisely by this strangeness and adventurous side of the appearance; the friend of truth seeks a mother for these lost children. He seeks her in the unchanged structure of the human soul and in the unchanged circumstances which determined them from outside and in these, he finds both certainly. It does not surprise him, now, any more, in the namely parcels where everywhere salutary herbs would grow, to see also the poisonous hemlock thriving, to find together in a cradle wisdom and foolishness, vice and virtue.

If I do not also scrutinize, here, any of the advantages which psychology derives from such a way of dealing with History, hence, it already retains, alone for that reason, the preference because it extirpates the horrible derision and the proud security, with which, usually, the unproved, righteous virtue looks down upon the persons who have failed; because it spreads the soft spirit of tolerance throughout, spirit of tolerance without which any fugitive may not wish to return back to his homeland, without which any reconciliation of law with its offenders cannot happen, without which any infected member of society will not be saved from the whole gangrene.

 

Would the criminal, from whom I will speak now, still have a right to call for this spirit of tolerance? Was he really lost without any possibility of rescue for the State? – I will not seize the attention of the reader about that concern. Our gentleness is not of any use to him any more, for he has died through the hand of the executioner – however, the autopsy of his vice may still teach something to Humanity and – yes, it is possible, also to Justice.

 

Christian Wolf was the son of a landlord in a small town (whose name must be kept secret, on grounds, which later on, will be evident) and because his father was dead, he helped his mother to care for the family affairs until he reached his twentieth year. The family trade was not going very well and Wolf had quite some idle time. Already in school, he was known for being a dispersed young man. The young ladies often complained about his brazenness while the young men of the small town, paid homage to his inventiveness.

 

Nature has neglected his body. A small, inconspicuous face, curly hair of an unpleasant blackness, a flat nose and a swollen upper lip which was caused by a horse kick in his direction, gave to his appearance a disturbance which repulsed all the women from him and offered many cause for raillery to his comrades. He would be aiming at things that were refused to him, because he displeased the people who he put himself to please. He was sensible and would usually confess what he loved.

 

The young lady, whom he chose, mistreated him; he had cause to fear his rivals who were more fortunate; even if the young lady of his choice was poor. He thought that a heart which remained closed to his promises, maybe, would be sensitive to his gifts, however, neediness pressed on him and the vain research to make his outside appearance prevail, disposed of the little earning, which he acquired by doing dubious trade.

 

Too uninterested and too ignorant to help out his ruined household through speculation, too proud, also too weak to transform the lord, which he once was, into a farmer and to separate himself from his revered freedom, he saw only a way out – a way which has given thousands before him and after him a better luck – to steal honestly. His hometown bordered a large forest, so, he would be a robber, and the product of his robbery would go, faithfully, to the hands of his beloved. Among the lovers of Hannah was Robert, a fellow hunter of the foresters.

 

Early on, Robert has noticed the advantage which the generosity of his rival has achieved over him, and he searched cunningly for the source of this change in munificence. He appeared diligently at the “Sun” – this was the name of the trading place – his scrutinizing eye, sharpened by jealousy and envy discovered very soon, from where the money was coming from.

 

his excerpt is 1 532-word long. The full translation of this short story is about 8 597 words.

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