I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch

Author:Max Frisch [Frisch, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

FIFTH NOTEBOOK

THE show put on today by my defending counsel, that diligent man who continues to defend the missing Stiller, was a total failure from his point of view—and yet this aperitif-confrontation with the leading critics of the little town was most enjoyable. A young gentleman's request that I should not take personally certain biting comments written seven years ago was touchingly superfluous. There was also a lady present, a mature personality, in character a 'guardian of the temple', yet possessed of a human modesty that was apparent at the first glance. My assurance that I was not the Stiller they took me for visibly relieved the little gathering of critics, and on top of that came the whisky. I asked the lady why she had refused to shake hands with me at the beginning. The situation became embarrassing again, but only for a few moments. If she had known it was about Stiller, the lady would not have come to this coffee-house table at all. Stiller must have behaved in an absolutely scandalous way towards this lady. My counsel looked at me, and my own curiosity was also aroused: the lady's silence provoked all sorts of conjectures. Stiller had once written this lady a letter, I heard, calling her a 'school-marm', just because she had been compelled, and would always be compelled, in the name of the spirit, out of love of the spirit and a profound sense of duty towards the art of all epochs, to deny him a place among true artists. I took the hand of this gracious and spirited lady, which was perhaps going too far, and said, 'Frau Doktor, I couldn't agree more.' The subject of discussion was a piece of sculpture I had recently seen in a public park. True, the lady's objections were not quite the same as my own, they were more subtle; but we conversed about strict criteria of judgement, and as a result we were very soon no longer concerned with the missing Stiller, who could not stand up to such criteria, but with the lady herself, with criticism as such, about which the lady knew a very great deal. I could understand her resolve never to write about Stiller again, simply to consign Stiller to oblivion: what better could I wish in my position, when the missing man gets in my way at every turn? And the gentlemen, too, were very pleasant. You only have to assure a critic perfectly frankly that you are not an artist, and immediately he'll talk to you as though you knew as much about art as he does.

***

Julika has gone away. Unfortunately when she came to see me before leaving, I was just being interrogated by the psychiatrist, who wouldn't allow the door to be suddenly opened for fear my soul might escape him. Her little good-bye present of cigars touched me precisely because they were the wrong brand again. As far as she is concerned, cigars are simply cigars, and as they are very expensive she's sure I'll like them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.