Chapter 22: Return to Stuttgart

 

Ludwigsburg

 

Then what must happen with the return of childhood memories happened to him: Ludwigsburg, the town of his childhood did not exactly reflect back to him all the sweet and ideal images which he cherished and kept alive in his mind for almost two decades. The vision of all the places where he used to be so happy, have changed and did not quite gave him the healing power which he expected. Even in those fields nearby town which did not change so much, the vision of the crops waiting to be harvested did not produce in him the great overflow of childhood felicity which he so much expected. His feelings however where of a different kind. The feelings of having completed a full cycle, a feeling a belonging which gave him an incredibly sense of peace. No, the return to Ludwigsburg did not gave him back his innocence and incredible beliefs in the teachings of his parents.

 

He is now a national figure of German Enlightenment, he now knows the tenets of Atheism and is involved in politics: Ludwigsburg has changed but so has he. In order for him to relive the sweet moments of his childhood, he would now have to rely but on his memories which he has kept secretly, warmly in his mind. He realized that his most precious source of felicity, of creativity, of mental renewal, relies in himself. His childhood is, indeed, his lost paradise, that trying to physically and emotionally recreate this paradise is vain, but to the contrary, using the powerful and symbolic images of this paradise will continue to act equally powerfully in his mind. He would have to reckon with this simple truth in the future.

 

It became clear to him then, during this period where he was wandering again in the places of his very happy childhood, that all along his early adult life, he has acted as a naive. He, however, would qualify his behavior with a word which he has invented for his own behavior: naivety. It is naivety mostly about the other human beings and their motives that helped him endure the severity of his destiny, the multiple abuses perpetrated by his supposed friends and real enemies alike. It was naivety that kept him all along these years, believing in a better form of Humanity, thinking about a better form of human governance, keeping his beliefs and faith when facing the most hostile adversity, maintaining the highest standards in the smallest form of human interactions.

 

Revisiting the places of your happy childhood, however, can also have other effects. As if his memories where having a will by themselves, then flocked also in his minds all the other images which he sincerely hoped to have forgotten. The images of his not so happy adolescence and adulthood, the images of his staying in Stuttgart, in Mannheim even those of his recent past, in Dresden. No, memories are also treacherous and cruel, they do not care which mental images are benevolent or hurting, they just pour images after images without any concern about their effects. The organ for his felicity must be something else.

 

As he was walking in the places of his childhood, as he was talking to the people who have known him in this period, Schiller would then have regrets, very many regrets. He saw in the faces of the people whom he has known during his childhood the same felicity, the same benevolence, indeed, the same innocence. These people were not made aware in a cruel manner of their condition of submission and dependence. These people have continued to live their lives, finding their hopes and felicity in the same homogenous community, surrounded by the same bountiful Nature, preserving their own values, faith and personality.