Full text of DOI:10.1111/1468-0483.00212

German Life and Letters 55:1 January 2002
0016–8777
‘WARUM NUN DIESES?’: VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN
THE STORIES OF ADALBERT STIFTER
Helena Ragg-Kirkby
abstract
‘Warum nun dieses?’ This is a question that people have been asking for hundreds
of years. Why do terrible things happen? On the surface, Adalbert Stifter claims
that there is a simple, God-given explanation for everything – and that all will be
clear to us once we have obtained the ‘right perspective’. Below their serene sur-
faces, however, his texts suggest something more sinister. For not only is our own
blindness such that we mostly only ever see what we imagine or invent – but, if
we do ever see the ‘truth’, then what we will see is that we ourselves are responsible
for the disasters that so inexplicably befall us. In this respect, Stifter’s fiction is
Kafka’s avant la lettre: Stifter is so to speak Kafka in a different key – apparently
sunnier, but in truth even more menacing.
Ich fand mich einmal wieder in dem Entsetzlichen, Zugrunderichtenden
[%] Dann war Klingen, Verwirrung, Schmerz in meinen Handen und Blut
¨
daran, die Mutter verband mich, und dann war ein Bild, das so klar vor mir
jetzt dasteht, als ware es in reinlichen Farben auf Porzellan gemalt. Ich stand
¨
in dem Garten, der von damals zuerst in meiner Einbildungskraft ist, die
Mutter war da, dann die andere Großmutter, deren Gestalt in jenem Augen-
blicke auch zum ersten Male in mein Gedachtnis kam, in mir war die Er-
¨
leichterung, die alle Male auf das Weichen des Entsetzlichen und Zugrunde-
richtenden folgte, und ich sagte: ‘Mutter, da wachst ein Kornhalm’.
¨
Die Großmutter antwortete darauf: ‘Mit einem Knaben, der die Fenster
zerschlagen hat, redet man nicht.’ Ich verstand zwar den Zusammenhang
nicht, aber das Außerordentliche, das eben von mir gewichen war, kam so-
gleich wieder; die Mutter sprach wirklich kein Wort, und ich erinnere mich,
daß ein ganz Ungeheures auf meiner Seele lag, das mag der Grund sein,
daß jener Vorgang noch jetzt in meinem Innern lebt. (MSB 604)1
The details of Stifter’s death are well known: his gruesome and messy
suicide (he slit his throat, but was stitched up again and died two days
later) has been pored over and interpreted by most modern critics.2 We
instantly encounter a contradiction: the man who preaches ‘Maßigung’
¨
and the ‘sanftes Gesez’ dies an unimaginably dreadful, self-inflicted death.
But is this self-mutilation really at odds with the rest of his life? ‘Mein
1 Page references are cited as follows: all references with the prefix NS relate to Der Nachsommer,
Munich 1969; references prefixed MSB relate to Die Mappe meines Urgroßvaters/Schilderungen/Briefe,
Munich 1979; references prefixed GW relate to Gesammelte Werke, Frankfurt a.M. 1959; references
without a prefix are to the Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. Alfred Doppler and Wolfgang
Fruhwald, Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne/Mainz 1978ff.
¨
2 It is typical that critics even disagree about how Stifter died. For conflicting views, see Hermann
Augustin, Adalbert Stifters Krankheit und Tod. Eine biographische Quellenstudie, Basel/Stuttgart 1964,
pp. 135–7, and Andreas Markus, Der Tod Adalbert Stifters, Neudeln/Liechtenstein 1967, p. 5.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
25
Leben’ suggests not. Here Stifter recounts an incident from his earliest
years – and his primal experience is one of fracture, terror, pain, alien-
ation, impending destruction, ‘das Entsetzliche’ and ‘das Zugrunderich-
tende’. This is his first memory: a memory of trauma, a look into the abyss
at a very young age. A monstrous dimension (‘ein [%] Ungeheueres’)
suddenly opens up beneath the surface harmony. His mother initially does
what all mothers do and bandages his injured hands (‘die Mutter verband
mich’) – but she then does the impossible, the unthinkable: she betrays
him (‘die Mutter sprach wirklich kein Wort’). Kafka will later touch a
similar nerve: ‘Der Mensch kann nicht leben ohne ein dauerndes Ver-
trauen zu etwas Unzerstorbarem in sich, wobei sowohl das Unzerstorbare
¨
¨
als auch das Vertrauen ihm dauernd verborgen bleiben konnen’.3 Such
¨
an illusion of ‘ein dauerndes Vertrauen’ is abruptly shattered in Stifter’s
childhood, and this experience is played out in his fiction in countless
different guises. A surface of continuity, meaning, moderation (signified
in ‘Mein Leben’ by his words: ‘Mutter, da wachst ein Kornhalm’) repeat-
¨
edly cracks open to reveal a monstrous void beneath; ‘Wonne und
Entzucken’ (MSB 602), ‘[das] Suße [und das] Stillende’ (MSB 603) give
¨
¨
way to ‘[das] Jammervolle [und das] Unleidliche’ (ibid.), which threaten
to destroy him (‘[drang] fast vernichtend in mein Wesen’, MSB 602). The
abyss opens up early for Stifter, and he spends his entire creative life trying
and failing to close it, trying in vain to put Humpty Dumpty back
together again.
This attempt to close the abyss is, for Stifter, largely related to how we
see things: if we look properly, so he suggests, we will be able to bridge
the void and make sense of the way in which terrifying Otherness, ‘das
Außerordentliche’, can descend upon a hapless child. In ‘Abdias’, it is
God-given ‘Vernunft’ which is offered as the ‘right’ perspective: it is said
to be ‘das Auge der Seele’ (1,5: 238). We find a similar formulation ten
years later in the Bunte Steine ‘Vorrede’, in which Stifter draws a distinction
between the ‘Blik des Unkundigen und Unaufmerksamen’, which is
attracted to the ostentatious but ephemeral ‘Ergebnisse einseitiger Ursa-
chen’, and the ‘Geisteszug des Forschers’, which is concerned with the
world-sustaining ‘Ganze und Allgemeine’ (2,2: 10). Significantly, he does
not merely apply this distinction to any one individual; rather, the develop-
ment towards Reason through a particular manner of seeing is related to
the development of humankind as a whole:
Da die Menschen in der Kindheit waren, ihr geistiges Auge von der Wissen-
schaft noch nicht beruhrt war, wurden sie von dem Nahestehenden und
¨
Auffalligen ergriffen, und zu Furcht und Bewunderung hingerissen: aber als
¨
ihr Sinn geoffnet wurde, da der Blik sich auf den Zusammenhang zu richten
begann, so sanken die einzelnen Erscheinungen immer tiefer, und es erhob
¨
3 Franz Kafka, Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande, ed. Brod, [Frankfurt a.M.] 1953, pp. 90–1.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

26
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
sich das Gesez immer hoher, die Wunderbarkeiten horten auf, das Wunder
¨
¨
nahm zu. (2,2: 11–12)
The same rationalist, even scientistic, perspective is evoked when he speaks
of ‘das geistige [Auge] der Wissenschaft’ (2,2: 11), by means of which man
¨
may ultimately achieve an ‘Uberblik uber ein Großeres’ (2,2: 15). This is
¨
¨
the phrase which he uses to convey a state of being that has achieved
complete objectivity and is able to see the ultimate order of Reason, the
‘gestaltvolles vernunftgemaßes Ganzes’ (2,2: 14). Stifter, then, links the
¨
‘right’ perspective to Vernunft: man has been given a capacity for rational
thought so that he may comprehend the unfailingly orderly workings of
the world.
‘Order’ and ‘orderliness’ throughout the universe imply, of course, an
‘orderer’, and it is again the human mind with its analytical and connec-
tive powers which, in Stifter’s view, enables mankind to perceive the divine
orderedness of things. This is particularly evident in the opening para-
graphs of ‘Die Sonnenfinsternis’, where the narrator rejoices that the
power of man’s Verstand enables him to experience the majesty of the
eclipse which is truly divine:
Vor tausendmaltausend Jahren hat Gott es so gemacht, daß es heute zu
dieser Sekunde sein wird; in unsere Herzen aber hat er die Fibern gelegt,
es zu empfinden. Durch die Schrift seiner Sterne hat er versprochen, daß
es kommen werde nach tausend und tausend Jahren, unsere Vater haben
¨
diese Schrift entziffern gelernt, und die Sekunde angesagt, in der es ein-
treffen musse; wir, die spaten Enkel, richten unsere Augen und Sehrohre
¨
¨
¨
zu gedachter Sekunde gegen die Sonne, und siehe: es kommt – der Verstand
triumphiert schon, daß er ihm die Pracht und Einrichtung seiner Himmel
nachgerechnet und abgelernt hat – und in der Tat, der Triumph ist einer
der gerechtesten des Menschen. (MSB 504)
The religious tenor of this passage makes it quite clear that the term
¨
‘Uberblik uber ein Großeres’ implies not a cold, detached understanding
¨
¨
of the mere mechanics of the universe, but an essentially religious awareness
of their marvellous God-given-ness. Stifter’s Enlightenment/Age of
Science view is one which sees the development from metaphorical infancy
to the realisation of the powers of the human mind. Moreover, he sees
exactly the same development in moral terms. The locus classicus of this
view is again the ‘Vorrede’, where he actually speaks of the ‘sittliche
¨
Geschichte der Menschen’ in which the ‘Uberblik’ effects a transform-
ation from ‘heftige Empfindungen und Leidenschaften’ to ‘Recht [%]
und Großmuth gegen den Feind und Unterdrukung seiner Empfin-
¨
dungen und Leidenschaften zum Besten der Gerechtigkeit [%] [und]
Maßigung’ (2,2: 15). In the chapter on Stifter in his book The German
¨
Novelle, Swales rightly points out that the ‘Vorrede’ closes with reflections
on man’s development to ethical maturity: a development which, he states,
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
27
‘expresses itself above all in a change of perspective’.4 Indeed, this connec-
tion in human history between full moral development and a change in
perspective is found in microcosm fifteen years after Bunte Steine in Der
Nachsommer. Despite being apparently free from such ‘heftige Empfin-
dungen und Leidenschaften’ from the very outset of the novel, Heinrich
Drendorf is seen to progress via ‘die naturliche Entwicklung der Dinge’
¨
(1,5: 445) towards ethical maturity; a progression which is charted through
his altering perspective on the statue which dominates Risach’s marble
staircase. After several visits to the Rosenhaus, Heinrich says of this ‘Mad-
¨
chengestalt’: ‘sie kam mir heute ganz anders vor’ (NS 326); later, he
remarks: ‘Ich sah die Gestalt lange an, sie war mir wie bei jedem er-
neuerten Anblicke wieder neu’ (NS 599). That Heinrich’s ethical develop-
ment is accompanied by a shift in perspective is clear from the way in
which he finally comes to realise the true beauty of the statue. This connec-
tion, moreover, is made explicit by Stifter in the following conversation
between Risach and his young disciple:
‘Warum habt Ihr mir denn nicht gesagt’, sprach ich weiter, ‘daß die
Bildsaule, welche auf Eurer Marmortreppe steht, so schon ist?’
¨
¨
‘Wer hat es Euch denn jetzt gesagt?’ fragte er.
‘Ich habe es selber gesehen’, antwortete ich.
‘Nun dann werdet Ihr es um so sicherer wissen und mit desto großerer
¨
Festigkeit glauben’, erwiderte er, ‘als wenn Euch jemand eine Behauptung
daruber gesagt hatte.’ (NS 327–8)
¨
¨
It is Heinrich’s progress towards achieving this full moral potential which
brings about the change in his perception of the world around him. Hav-
ing learnt from both his father and Risach, not to mention from his own
observations of nature, he declares, using terms which instantly call the
‘Vorrede’ to mind: ‘Großes ist mir klein, Kleines ist mir groß’ (NS 189).
The true essence of the objects which make up the ‘vernunftgemaßes Gan-
¨
zes’ (2,2: 14) can only be perceived and appreciated once man has realised
his inner potential, and in the course of this process they steadily take on
‘ein anderes Aussehen’ (NS 296).
Throughout his creative life, then, Stifter clearly postulates a ‘right’ per-
spective – and, moreover, makes this one of the central themes of his
prose. Swales is again sensitive to this aspect of the fiction, stating: ‘in
Stifter’s narrative art the act of interpretation, of establishing perspective,
is part of the central theme’;5 this, as we shall see, is particularly true in
the case of ‘Abdias’. More specifically, and no less pertinently, Watanabe-
O’Kelly suggests that ‘perhaps the greatest Stifterian theme of all [is] see-
ing and seeing truly [%] if one sees with the eyes only, one is blind. One
4 Martin Swales, The German ‘Novelle’, Princeton 1977, p. 139.
5 Ibid., p. 156.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

28
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
must see with the heart’.6 This is clearly the ethical thrust of ‘Brigitta’. In
the opening paragraph, the narrator remarks:
In dem Angesichte eines Haßlichen ist fur uns oft eine innere Schonheit,
¨
¨
¨
die wir nicht auf der Stelle von seinem Werthe herzuleiten vermogen, wahr-
¨
¨
end uns oft die Zuge eines andern kalt und leer sind, von denen alle sagen,
daß sie die großte Schonheit besitzen. (1,5: 411)
¨
¨
¨
Implicit in this passage is the distinction between appearance and reality –
a distinction which presupposes an unproblematic reality. Only the heart
can perceive this true beauty which is an essentially moral reality (‘Daß
zuletzt sittliche Grunde vorhanden sind, die das Herz heraus fuhlt, ist kein
¨
¨
Zweifel’, ibid.). Of course, this belief pervades not only the first paragraph,
but is – on one level, at least – the principal theme of ‘Brigitta’. ‘Oft wird
die Schonheit nicht gesehen, weil sie in der Wuste ist, oder weil das rechte
¨
¨
Auge nicht gekommen ist’ (1,5: 445–6), comments the narrator halfway
through the story, as he embarks upon his account of the eponymous
heroine’s barren childhood. He pursues the theme of ‘true’ seeing
throughout the chapter ‘Steppenvergangenheit’, lamenting three pages
later: ‘Wenn nur einer gewesen ware, fur die verhullte Seele ein Auge zu
¨
¨
¨
haben, und ihre Schonheit zu sehen, daß sie sich nicht verachte’ (1,5:
¨
448). Brigitta’s errant husband, meanwhile, is made to recognise and
repeat the moral of the story: ‘ja, es zieht uns das Gesetz der Schonheit,
¨
aber ich mußte die ganze Welt durchziehen, bis ich lernte, daß sie im
Herzen liegt’ (1,5: 473). ‘Abdias’ is even more explicit in its postulation
of a ‘true’ perspective which comes from the heart. For instance, after
smallpox has hideously scarred Abdias’s exceptionally handsome face and
left him repellent to his wife, Deborah, the narrator immediately com-
ments on her partial vision: ‘sie hatte nur leibliche Augen empfangen um
die Schonheit des Korpers zu sehen, nicht geistige, die des Herzens’ (1,5:
¨
¨
249–50). Deborah is not alone in failing to perceive inner beauty: Abdias,
too, sees only her physical attributes (‘er [sah] auch nichts, als ihre große
Schonheit’, 1,5: 250). In contrast, his daughter Ditha, though physically
¨
blind, does possess the ‘right’ way to see, incapable as she is of being
misled by the spectacle of his outward deformity: ‘denn was die Außenwelt
fur ihre Augen war, das war er fur ihr Herz – ja er war ihr noch mehr,
¨
¨
als die Außenwelt; denn sie glaubte immer, er sei es, der ihr diese ganze
außere Welt gegeben habe’ (1,5: 328). Here as in ‘Brigitta’, we are shown
¨
man apparently achieving a perspective whereby he can see the truth that
is moral beauty.
Both ‘Brigitta’ and ‘Abdias’ treat the theme of a true moral perspective
in the context of human relationships. This, though, is only one aspect
of a much broader philosophical issue, namely the whole problematic
relationship between man and the world around him. How are we to inter-
6 Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly (trans.), Brigitta and Other Tales, London 1994, p. 14.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
29
pret this relationship? How can we be sure that we have the ‘right’ perspec-
tive? How are we to fathom the meaning of the universe? How are we to
answer the eternal question ‘warum nun dieses’ (1,5: 239)? – a question
that Kafka’s ‘Landvermesser’ will repeat almost verbatim in Das Schloß:
‘Warum dies alles? Warum dies alles?’7 Precisely these concerns are them-
atised in the exordium of ‘Abdias’, when Stifter has the narrator ponder
on the fact that, quite out of the blue, some individuals suffer a deluge
of extreme misfortune, whilst others become the target of equally extreme
good fortune:
Es gibt Menschen, auf welche eine solche Reihe Ungemach aus heiterm
Himmel fallt, daß sie endlich da stehen und das hagelnde Gewitter uber
¨
¨
sich ergehen lassen: so wie es auch andere gibt, die das Gluck mit solchem
¨
ausgesuchten Eigensinne heimsucht, daß es scheint, als kehrten sich in
einem gegebenen Falle die Naturgesetze um, damit es nur zu ihrem Heile
ausschlage. (1,5: 237)
This process is beyond human understanding: the laws of nature bestow
‘Segen’ one day, ‘das Entsetzliche’ the next, and we can only stand
bemused and suppose that some supreme but invisible entity is respon-
sible: ‘uns ist, als lange ein unsichtbarer Arm aus der Wolke, und thue
vor unsern Augen das Unbegreifliche’ (ibid.). Throughout human history,
men have sought to comprehend the incomprehensible by making essen-
tially the same supposition, namely that there is a metaphysical or godly
design behind the apparently random visitations of Fortune and Misfor-
tune. To the ancients this was grim Fate, ‘Fatum, furchtbar letzter starrer
Grund des Geschehenden’ (1,5: 237–8); to the moderns, somewhat more
benignly, it is ‘Schicksal, also ein von einer hohern Macht Gesendetes, das
¨
wir empfangen sollen’ (1,5: 238). Through his narrator, however, Stifter
proceeds to offer a radically different explanation: he posits that there is
no such thing as ‘Fate’, no such thing as ‘Schicksal’, but instead an infinite
concatenation of Cause and Effect.8 The explanation is presented in con-
spicuously pretty and benign terms: the concatenation is a ‘heitre Blumen-
kette’ that man’s Reason is capable of tracing right through to the
implicitly divine hand that holds and controls it:
Aber eigentlich mag es weder ein Fatum geben, als letzte Unvernunft des
Seins, noch auch wird das Einzelne auf uns gesendet; sondern eine heitre
Blumenkette hangt durch die Unendlichkeit des Alls und sendet ihren
¨
Schimmer in die Herzen – die Kette der Ursachen und Wirkungen – und
7 Franz Kafka, Das Schloß, ed. Brod, [Frankfurt a.M.] 1964, p. 381.
8 Neugebauer offers an alternative explanation for Stifter’s dismissal of ‘Fatum’ and ‘Schicksal’,
but he overlooks crucial aspects of the texts when he claims: ‘Wenn er [Stifter] sagt, es gebe
eigentlich weder Fatum noch Schicksal, dann spricht er vom Standpunkt des aufgeklarten Ver-
¨
nunftmenschen aus, dem solche geschichtlichen Phanomene zweifelhaft zu werden beginnen’
¨
(Klaus Neugebauer, Selbstentwurf und Verhangnis. Ein Beitrag zu Adalbert Stifters Verstandnis von Schick-
¨
¨
sal und Geschichte, Tubingen 1982, p. 24).
¨
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

30
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
in das Haupt des Menschen ward die schonste dieser Blumen geworfen, die
¨
Vernunft, das Auge der Seele, die Kette daran anzuknupfen, und an ihr
¨
Blume um Blume, Glied um Glied hinab zu zahlen bis zuletzt zu jener Hand,
¨
in der das Ende ruht. (ibid.)
Two things are particularly striking about this seemingly comforting and
confident vision as the narrator goes on to elaborate it. One is that,
although the human mind is said to be blessed with the ability to trace
the chain of causes and effects to its very ends, this will be achieved only at
some unimaginably remote point in the future: the ‘flower-chain’ stretches
through all infinity (‘durch die Unendlichkeit des Alls’), it is ‘unermeß-
lich’ in the number of its links, and it is so immense that in over a thou-
sand years we have managed to perceive nothing but a few individual pet-
als (‘Wohl zahlt nun das menschliche Geschlecht schon aus einem
¨
Jahrtausende in das andere, aber von der großen Kette der Blumen sind
nur erst einzelne Blatter aufgedeckt’, ibid.); for now and for any kind of
¨
foreseeable future, we are left with ‘Lucken’, the ꢀtiology of events
¨
remains ‘ein heiliges Rathsel’ (ibid.). It is perhaps surprising that more
¨
critics have not noticed that, beyond its garb of cheerfulness, the vision
here is chillingly prefigurative of his Austro-Hungarian successor Franz
Kafka’s ‘Eine kaiserliche Botschaft’.9 The second and far more chilling
point, however, is the outcome that Stifter posits. Mankind, he assures us,
will ultimately (‘dereinstens’) understand the entire chain of causes and
effects: ‘dann wird fur uns kein Zufall mehr erscheinen, sondern Folgen,
¨
kein Ungluck mehr, sondern nur Verschulden; denn die Lucken, die jetzt
¨
¨
sind, erzeugen das Unerwartete, und der Mißbrauch das Ungluckselige’
¨
(1,5: 238; my emphasis). Decked out though it is in flower-language, the
vision is grim indeed: all apparent human ‘catastrophes’ are in truth
caused by wrongful human actions; all ‘coincidences’ are in fact conse-
quences; seeming misfortunes (‘Ungluck’) are the result of human ‘Ver-
¨
schulden’. Begemann argues that the notion of ‘Verschulden’ is little
more than a void-filler, a convenient explanation for chance events.10 But
it seems to me that Stifter offers us a ferocious perspective here: if a little
boy drowns or a Bedouin is struck by lightning (the two examples used
in the ‘Abdias’ exordium), they are not the victims of random Fate or
chance, but the victims of their own or others’ ‘Mißbrauch’ or ‘Verschuld-
en’.
Let us look at the first point in more detail. Stifter has an essentially
scientistic view that posits a specific concatenation of cause and effect
9 Van Ingen also finds this passage teasing, but he ultimately offers no real interpretation, tending
instead to paraphrase Stifter’s own views (Ferdinand van Ingen, ‘Band und Kette. Zu einer Denk-
figur bei Stifter’, in Laufhutte and Moseneder (eds.), Adalbert Stifter: Dichter und Maler, Denkmalpfleger
¨
¨
und Schulmann. Neue Zugange zu seinem Werk, Tubingen 1996, p. 2).
¨
¨
10 ‘Man konnte vielleicht sagen, diese Hypothese fulle eine Lucke, die die Idee einer menschen-
¨
¨
¨
fremden Ordnung laßt, namlich die menschlichen Katastrophen zu erklaren’ (Christian Bege-
¨
¨
¨
mann, Die Welt der Zeichen. Stifter-Lekturen, Stuttgart/Weimar 1995, p. 195).
¨
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
31
behind every apparently random, apparently inexplicable ‘spasm’ of for-
tune or misfortune. The crucial thing about this ‘Kette’, however, is that
it is as yet humanly unknowable. Even in the ‘Vorrede’, in which he posits
the particular perspective which enables man to see why things happen,
Stifter admits that throughout the course of history there has been only
‘eine immerwahrende Umwandlung der Ansichten uber dieses Große’
¨
¨
(2,2: 11). Even here, then, we find doubts lurking within the idea that it
is possible to maintain one absolute perspective. The passage concedes
that man has never yet been able to secure a clear, definitive, void-bridging
¨
‘Uberblik’ – and this fundamental insecurity is conveyed by much of his
fiction. This is particularly true of ‘Turmalin’. In the introductory para-
graph of this sombre tale, it is made clear that the ‘Rentherr’ is to be
taken as an example of the sad consequences of irrationality:
Es ist darin wie in einem traurigen Briefe zu entnehmen, wie weit der
Mensch kommt, wenn er das Licht seiner Vernunft trubt, die Dinge nicht
¨
¨
mehr versteht, von dem innern Geseze, das ihn unabwendbar zu dem
Rechten fuhrt, laßt, sich unbedingt der Innigkeit seiner Freuden und
¨
¨
Schmerzen hingibt, den Halt verliert, und in Zustande gerath, die wir uns
¨
¨
kaum zu entrathseln wissen. (2,2: 135)
¨
This strange character spends his time wheeling himself around in his
‘Rollstuhl’, trying thereby to find the right perspective from which to view
the pictures of men’s heads on his walls. Significantly, though, what he
obtains is only a constantly shifting viewpoint, as the narrator indicates
when speaking of the various ladders ‘von deren Stufen aus man verschie-
dene Standpunkte gewinnen konnte’ (2,2: 136). Der Nachsommer treats the
issue in a similar manner. Heinrich’s father, for example, has an easel
which he moves around in order to see his paintings in the best light:
‘Der Vater hatte sich eine Staffelei aus braunem Holze machen lassen,
und diese stand in dem Zimmer, damit man bald das eine bald das andere
Bild darauf stellen und es genau in dem rechten Lichte betrachten
konnte’ (NS 11). Again, he aims to achieve the ‘right’ perspective, but
this very aim suggests that there may in fact be other ways of looking at
phenomena, albeit ‘wrong’ ways revealing only a small part of the ‘greater
whole’, the ‘Großeres’ postulated in the ‘Vorrede’. This is most conspicu-
¨
ously so in ‘Turmalin’, where the daughter of the ‘Rentherr’ gains a
severely limited perspective on the outside world from the ladder in her
cellar: ‘[ich] stieg [%] auf die Leiter, und schaute durch die Drahtlocher
¨
des Fensters hinaus. Da sah ich die Saume von Frauenkleidern vorbei
¨
gehen, sah die Stiefel von Mannern, sah schone Spizen von Roken oder
die vier Fusse eines Hundes’ (2,2: 174). Heinrich Drendorf, meanwhile,
realises that one perceives different aspects of an object from different
vantage-points:
¨
¨
¨
¨
Ich sah mich noch einmal um, da ich zwischen den Feldern hinabging, und
sah das weiße Haus im Sonnenscheine stehen, wie ich es schon ofter hatte
¨
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

32
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
stehen gesehen, ich konnte noch den Rosenschimmer unterscheiden, und
glaubte, noch das Singen der zahlreichen Vogel im Garten vernehmen zu
¨
konnen.
¨
Hierauf wendete ich mich wieder um, und ging abwarts, bis ich zu der Hecke
¨
und der Einfriedigung der Felder kam, bei der ich vorgestern von der Straße
abgebogen hatte. Ich konnte mich nicht enthalten, noch einmal
umzusehen. Das Haus stand jetzt nur mehr weiß da, wie ich es ofter bei
¨
meinen Wanderungen gesehen hatte. (NS 154)
Stifter, then, foregrounds the question of partial perspectives – and one
strong implication of this is the one we have already seen: that man is for
the present and for the foreseeable future capable of making out only a
tiny part of the infinite ‘Kette der Ursachen und Wirkungen’. However,
he goes still further than this. As well as having only partial perspectives
on any reality, so Stifter suggests, we fill the remaining gaps in our percep-
tion by ‘seeing’ what we imagine or invent, rather than what is actually
there – hence the notions of ‘Fatum’ and ‘Schicksal’ invented by the anc-
ients and the moderns. Stifter’s texts suggest a fascination beyond measure
for the process whereby we think we see, but are in truth merely speculat-
ing. Heinrich Drendorf is one such speculator: he stumbles across the
‘Rosenhaus’ whilst seeking shelter from an impending storm, and is quite
unconvinced when Risach tells him that the storm will not actually break
out (which, in fact, it doesn’t). The surveyor in ‘Kalkstein’ is an even
clearer case in point. He is quite oblivious of the storm which is brewing,
and even contradicts the priest’s (correct) forecast (2,2: 73–4); yet it is he
who boasts of his skills as a professional observer and measurer of natural
phenomena (cf. ibid.). Such misinterpretation of a situation is one of Stif-
ter’s recurrent themes; in fact, it could be said to govern much of the
action of the texts. In ‘Die Mappe’, for instance, Augustinus espies Marga-
rita walking with her cousin and, without asking for an explanation, bom-
bards her with accusations of infidelity. He is, of course, wrong. Blinded
by the overwhelming force of his own passion for her, he misreads the
purely platonic love between the cousins; and this gross misinterpretation
of reality offends his beloved and leads to their separation. Although their
problems turn out to be transitory, they lead us to doubt that man’s per-
ception of a situation can ever be anything other than distorted. The same
misgivings even lie within the palisade of Risach’s idyllic Rosenhaus in Der
Nachsommer. In the chapter ‘Der Ruckblick’, Stifter returns to the theme
¨
of misreading a situation, and the consequences which he records here
are yet more far-reaching. When Risach and Mathilde meet again, many
years after separating, Risach suggests that her inadequate perspective was
to blame for her refusal to believe that he genuinely loved her: ‘Die Erkla-
¨
rung liegt darin, daß du nicht zu sehen vermochtest, was zu sehen war’
(NS 677–8). She misread his anguished acquiescence in her parents’
wishes, taking it to mean that their ‘Band der Liebe’ (NS 666) meant
nothing to him. Yet even Risach himself has not been safe from the perils
of a similarly inappropriate or inadequate perspective: the reason he sub-
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
33
mitted to her parents at all is because he wrongly believed that she would
be unhappy if he were to disobey them.
Although both ‘Die Mappe’ and Der Nachsommer are dominated by the
characters’ failure to perceive the truth of their respective circumstances,
the problems arising from their misconceptions seem ultimately to be
resolved. Margarita accepts Augustinus’s apology and his marriage pro-
posal,11 and they live happily ever after. Admittedly, Risach and Mathilde
do not marry, but we are nevertheless led to believe that their neighbourly
love and respect is in a sense richer and more constant than even a formal
union might have been (and, of course, they marry by proxy, as it were,
through Heinrich and Natalie). ‘Abdias’, however, emphasises that the
consequences of such misinterpretation can be altogether disastrous;
indeed, the protagonist is in many ways an embodiment of Kafka’s pro-
nouncement: ‘Ein Mißverstandnis ist es; und wir gehen daran zugrunde’.12
¨
The story charts a spectacular succession of events which are largely pre-
cipitated by the protagonist’s total inability to read the truth of the situ-
ations in which he finds himself, as Pettersson shrewdly points out.13 Abdi-
as’s first error is to interpret the cloud which he sees rising from his desert
city as a sign of impending rain:
[er] sah [%] eine schwache blaue Dunstschichte uber der Geisterstadt
¨
stehen, gleichsam einen brutenden Wolkenschleier, wie sie oft ihr Phantom
¨
auf die Wuste werfen – allein er achtete nicht darauf, da auch der andere
¨
Himmel sich milchig zu beziehen anfing, und die heiße Sonne wie ein
rothes trubes Auge oben stand, was in diesen Gegenden immer das Heran-
¨
nahen der Regenzeit bedeutet. (1,5: 254)
However, as he draws closer, he realises that he has gravely misread the
signs and that the devastated city has been laid waste yet again (surely
there is a kind of dark, laconic humour here): ‘Aber da er endlich zu den
wohlbekannten Trummern gelangte [%] sah er, daß man die zerstorte
¨
¨
Stadt noch einmal zerstort hatte’ (ibid.). This misreading in itself may not
¨
be particularly disastrous. However, it is typical of the character’s perspec-
tive – and it is soon followed by another misinterpretation, this time one
which has fatal consequences. We are given a long description of the way
in which Abdias cares for his sick wife: he assumes that she is cold, so
covers her with a blanket; her drooping eyelids lead him to believe that
she is tired; he imagines, moreover, that some soup will help her to sleep
and thus to regain her strength. However, the grim truth – that she was
silently bleeding to death – becomes evident to her husband only when
11 Admittedly, the Letzte Mappe does not end in marriage, as Stifter died before he could finish
this, the final version of the story. None the less, the existing text points to it being very likely that
Augustinus’s and Margarita’s union would again have been the culmination of all the events.
12 Franz Kafka, ‘Ein altes Blatt’, in Franz Kafka, Erzahlungen, ed. Brod, [Frankfurt a.M.] 1965, p. 158.
¨
13 Torsten Pettersson, ‘“Eine Welt aus Sehen und Blindheit”. Consciousness and World in Stifter’s
Abdias’, GRM, 40 (1990), 50.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

34
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
he returns from haggling with his neighbours: ‘Aber sie hatte einer Pflege
nicht mehr noth; denn da er außer Hause war, hatte sie nicht geschlum-
mert, sondern sie war gestorben’ (1,5: 267). He did not see. Moreover,
Deborah’s is not the only fatality resulting from Abdias’s inability to read
the signs: his dog, Asu, falls prey to a similar misconception. Whilst his
master is riding through the forest, the dog displays all the symptoms of
the rabies epidemic which has been sweeping through the area. Abdias
draws the reasonable conclusion that the unfortunate hound is afflicted,
and shoots him – only to realise that Asu was in fact trying to lead him
back to the place where he had left his money-belt.14 The true complexity
of this issue is emphasised by a comparison between the ‘Journalfassung’
and the ‘Buchfassung’. The earlier version clearly indicates that Abdias is
at fault for failing to look properly (the narrator explicitly comments on
‘die Verblendung des Mannes’, 1,2: 141). The fact that Stifter excised this
comment whilst revising the story, however, points to deep ambivalence
in this regard. On the one hand, Abdias may be foolishly, culpably blink-
ered. But on the other hand the true nature of reality simply is not evident;
mankind has, we will remember, discovered ‘erst einzelne Blatter’ of the
¨
‘Kette der Ursachen und Wirkungen’. This same problem is emphasised
by Ditha’s death; and the narrator again focuses on Abdias’s inappropriate
perspective at the scene’s climax. As he looks at the sky, Abdias decides
that they will not reach home before the rain begins, so takes her to a
shelter of wheat-sheaves for protection – which, given another set of cir-
cumstances, may be exactly the right thing to do (indeed, this is precisely
how the Brown Girl saves the others’ lives in ‘Kazensilber’, 2,2: 262 ff.).
However, the rain never arrives. There is a sole flash of lightning and, in
a final and ironic misapprehension, Abdias believes that he can see the
‘Schimmer’ which Ditha normally exhibits during storms (1,5: 340). But
she is dead. Could Abdias have prevented it? Stifter gives us no answer.
Evidently, the theme of what man can and cannot see is central to Stif-
ter’s prose; it now remains for us to consider its significance. The introduc-
tory paragraphs of ‘Abdias’ offered us useful pointers, but so, too, do the
opening lines of ‘Brigitta’. Here, the narrator tells us at the outset that
some aspects of human existence are impossible to fathom. The truth is
there, but it is apprehensible to man only as an ‘immeasurable abyss’,
albeit a ‘cheerful’ one (like the ‘heitre Blumenkette’):
Es gibt oft Dinge und Beziehungen in dem menschlichen Leben, die uns
nicht sogleich klar sind, und deren Grund wir nicht in Schnelligkeit hervor
zu ziehen vermogen [%] Die Seelenkunde hat manches beleuchtet und er-
¨
klart, aber vieles ist ihr dunkel und in großer Entfernung geblieben. Wir
¨
glauben daher, daß es nicht zu viel ist, wenn wir sagen, es sei fur uns noch
¨
14 That the preoccupation with blindness is obsessive is suggested by details such as Abdias
obtaining his dog when it is ‘noch blind’ (1,5: 315): it is surely no accident that Stifter chooses to
stress the puppy’s blindness.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
35
ein heiterer unermeßlicher Abgrund, in dem Gott und die Geister wandeln.
(1,5: 411)
There are immense gaps in man’s knowledge, yet this does not apparently
throw into question the faith that there is a meaningful order; on the
contrary, the gaps are defined as essentially temporary ones that will be
filled in due time (albeit a near infinitude of time) to reveal the whole
splendid truth now hidden in the abyss. But at the prevailing stage in
human history, the characters are unable to see the truth of an object or
situation because they are blinded by their passions or by a ‘wisdom’ that
is ignorance. This predicament is expressed particularly intensely in ‘Die
Narrenburg’, at the point where Jodok realises that Chelion has broken
his moral code of fidelity. When confronted, she accuses him of having a
pathologically warped perspective, crying: ‘siehe, dein Auge, dein gutes
Auge ist so krank, es ist so krank. – Du wirst mich todten, Jodock [sic]’
¨
(1,4: 422). As she sees it, her sexual encounter with her husband’s brother
is insignificant, as she loves only Jodok; but he, enraged and heartbroken,
sees her death as the only possible outcome. What this emphasises is the
way in which we all have our own picture of the world and its values, as
its truth remains unfathomable. This is beautifully expressed as early as
1840 in ‘Feldblumen’, where Albrecht muses:
es gibt aber Leute, die aus den wenigen Farbenkornern, die dem Andern
¨
entspringen, nur Fratzen bilden – und diese bedaure ich – sie sagen freilich,
sie kennen die Welt, aber es ist nicht wahr, sie bekennen nur wider Willen
ihr kleines Innere, und haben noch dazu eine Zerrwelt. – – Vor dem
Hohlspiegel unsrer Sinne hangt nur das Luftbild einer Welt, die wahre hat
¨
Gott allein. (1,4: 61)
Stifter, moreover, does not merely apply this vision of the ‘Luftbild’ to the
pitiable few just cited, but to all of us. Irmscher aptly singles out this pass-
age, arguing that ‘der Spiegel [ist] das treffende Bild fur das Weltver-
¨
haltnis des Subjektivisten, der nicht die Wirklichkeit wahrnimmt, sondern
¨
statt ihrer sich eine “Zerrwelt” vorspiegelt’.15 For Irmscher, ‘Wirklichkeit’
can be perceived only when man renounces all his subjective claims – but
how can we perceive ‘die wahre Welt’ if only God possesses it? If all humans
can see only a ‘Luftbild’, a ‘Spiegelbild’, a mirage? It is telling indeed that
Stifter uses the ‘mirror’ image at this point: does the mirror reflect the
‘truth’, or the interpretation which we wish upon it? Is there a substantive
reality, or are we left only with images which we invent ourselves? Stifter
professes confidence that ‘dereinstens’ man may well comprehend all the
myriad cause-and-effect relationships behind events, ‘das Geschehen’. But
what matters in effect is now – and what we have now is scant knowledge
and huge ‘Lucken’, and hence also ‘Mißbrauch’. For the present and for
¨
15 Hans Dietrich Irmscher, Adalbert Stifter. Wirklichkeitserfahrung und gegenstandliche Darstellung, Mun-
¨
ich 1971, p. 56.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

36
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
any kind of foreseeable future, the world remains ‘das Unbegreifliche’,
‘ein heiliges Rathsel’, even beyond anything we can imagine (‘uber den
¨
¨
Kreis unserer Vorstellungen hinaus’, GW VI: 579). And not only have we
not yet fulfilled the possibility of perceiving the order of the world but –
in a classic example of Stifterian absurdism avant la lettre – if we can ever
do so, it will be when mankind has ceased to exist: ‘wenn der letzte Mensch
gestorben ist, wenn die Summe der Menschheit abgeschlossen ist’ (GW
VI: 395). In the meantime this kind of knowledge is no more than the
remotest of remote possibilities:
Wenn dann einer sagt, warum denn die Kette so groß ist, daß wir in Jahrtau-
senden erst einige Blatter aufgedeckt haben, die da duften, so antworten
¨
wir: So unermeßlich ist der Vorrath darum, damit ein jedes der kommenden
Geschlechter etwas finden konne, – das kleine Aufgefundne ist schon ein
¨
großer herrlicher Reichthum, und immer großer immer herrlicher wird der
¨
Reichthum, je mehr da kommen, welche leben und enthullen – und was
¨
noch erst die Woge aller Zukunft birgt, davon konnen wir wohl kaum das
¨
Tausendstel des Tausendstels ahnen. – – (1,5: 238–9)
Beneath the prettifications, the deceptively jolly surface, these ‘Abdias’
lines are scarcely less grim than Kafka’s story with its picture of the poor
individual merely dreaming of the message that in truth will never reach
him. Equally proto-Kafkaesque are Heinrich’s musings in Der Nachsommer:
‘Wer wird diese Geschichte einmal klar vor Augen haben? Wird eine sol-
che Zeit kommen [%]?’ (NS 291). This unceasing mania to answer
unanswerable questions occupies Stifter from the trauma in his childhood
right until his death:
Ist es so? Ist es nicht so? Auch das wissen wir wieder nicht.
‘Nun,’ wird einer sagen, ‘wozu die mußigen Fragen, wozu das mußige
¨
¨
Gerede, das man nicht einmal uberall versteht, und dem vielleicht gar nie-
¨
mals eine Losung wird und sehr wahrscheinlich auch gar nicht not tut?
¨
Wozu das?’
Der Mann hat recht, ich werde die Losungen dieser Fragen nie finden, und
¨
tue die Fragen doch immer wieder [%] und werde sie wieder tun, und mit
mir werden sie diejenigen tun, die ahnliche Wege wandeln (GW VI: 579)
¨
As already mentioned, there are two basic problems at the heart of ‘Ab-
dias’. One is that epistemological labyrinth which opens up ever more as
man tries to cope with a maze of ‘Ursachen und Wirkungen’ that remains
almost entirely hidden and conjectural, visible if at all only in random
fragments. If we now turn to the second point, we will see that what is so
terrifying about this very modern, science-related postulate of a logical
chain of causes and effects is that it underwrites the ancient fear that, by
some relentless but unfathomable cause-and-effect process, we – and not
‘God’ or ‘the gods’ or ‘Fate’ or ‘ein unsichtbarer Arm’ – are fully and
wholly responsible for the disasters (and blessings) that so inexplicably
befall us. As Stifter explicitly states:
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
Kein Weltgeist, kein Damon regiert die Welt: Was je Gutes oder Boses uber die
37
¨
¨
¨
Menschen gekommen ist, haben die Menschen gemacht. Gott hat ihnen den freien
Willen und die Vernunft gegeben und hat ihr Schicksal in ihre Hand gelegt.
(GW VI: 392; Stifter’s emphasis)
– this, we must remember, was written by a man whose adopted daughter
ran away and committed suicide. ‘Die Mappe’ also clearly illustrates the
extent to which we bring disaster upon ourselves. The ‘Buchfassung’ is
particularly grim in this respect. As in ‘Abdias’, humans have imagined
that there is some design behind apparently inexplicable events: here,
some ordering principle is supposed to have decreed that ‘misfortune’
should descend upon a certain individual (‘so sagen wir, das sei ein
Ungluck’). In truth, however, such events are ultimately the result of
¨
wrongful human action:
Man sagt, daß der Wagen der Welt auf goldenen Radern einhergeht. Wenn
¨
dadurch Menschen zerdruckt werden, so sagen wir, das sei ein Ungluck;
¨
¨
aber Gott schaut gelassen zu, er bleibt in seinem Mantel gehullt und hebt
¨
deinen Leib nicht weg, weil du es zuletzt selbst bist, der ihn hingelegt hat;
denn er zeigte dir vom Anfange her die Rader, und du achtetest sie nicht.
¨
(1,5: 32)
The Letzte Mappe is less grim on the surface, but the thrust of the passage
is the same none the less: all that happens to us is our own fault (and in
this context, it is significant that ‘God’ is no longer mentioned; instead,
Stifter refers to an all-encompassing and not necessarily religious ‘Allheit’
and ‘Herrlichkeit’):
Und wenn du deinem Herzen wehe getan hast, daß es zucket und vergehen
will, oder daß es sich ermannt und großer wird, so kummert sich die Allheit
¨
¨
nicht darum, und dranget ihrem Ziele zu, das die Herrlichkeit ist. Du aber
¨
¨
hattest es vermeiden konnen, oder kannst es andern, und die Anderung wird dir
vergolten; denn es entsteht nun das Außerordentliche daraus. (MSB 203; my
¨
¨
¨
emphasis)
Misfortune (like fortune) descends upon us as ‘das Unerwartete’ and ‘das
Ungluckselige’, just as it did on the ancients who saw/interpreted it as
¨
‘Fatum’ or on the moderns who see/interpret it as ‘Schicksal’. But Stifter
firmly, perhaps even masochistically, suspects that fortune/misfortune is
not visited upon us by ‘the Fates’ or by ‘God(s)’, but is incurred by us
ourselves through our having neither zero knowledge nor perfect know-
ledge, but dangerously partial knowledge, which entails not only lacunae
(‘Lucken’) but also misapplication, not to say abuse, of the little we do
¨
know. It may be the case that the terrible catastrophe that descends upon
Clarissa and Ronald and all their retinues in ‘Der Hochwald’ is a visitation
of fate (‘Verhangniß’, 1,4: 314); more probably – so Stifter direly believes
¨
and fears – it is the outcome of their own ‘Verblendung’ (blindness or
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

38
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
‘bedazzledness’) (ibid.), their own ‘Verschulden’ (to quote ‘Abdias’) and
perhaps others’ too.16 The concepts of ‘Fatum’, ‘Schicksal’, ‘Verhangnis’
¨
do occur in Stifter’s work, but almost invariably as a kind of traditional
coinage which the narrators and other characters fall back on in their
attempts to explain the inexplicable. What chiefly animates Stifter’s vision,
however, is the belief (or fear) that human beings actively and personally
generate their own salvations, their own hells – as the Letzte Mappe suggests:
‘Du aber hattest es vermeiden konnen’. In ‘Kalkstein’ the protagonist’s
¨
¨
‘tiger’ briefly and dangerously escapes, but is then successfully if arduously
kennelled and leashed by its ‘owner’,17 whereas the ‘Rentherr’, already
existentially unfocussed before his wife’s adultery, loses all sense of ‘Maß’
and drags himself and his innocent daughter down into a literally subter-
ranean zone. What rescues Stifter from facile moralising is that his charac-
ters so often appear to be exercising their moral choices whilst dazzled or
blindfolded in the midst of an epistemological and ontological labyrinth.
Already teasingly implicit in Stifter’s work is that ominous invisibility of
everything that might matter which constitutes the departure-point of
Das Schloß:
Es war spatabends, als K. ankam. Das Dorf lag in tiefem Schnee. Vom Schloß-
¨
berg war nichts zu sehen, Nebel und Finsternis umgaben ihn, auch nicht
der schwachste Lichtschein deutete das große Schloß an. Lange stand K. auf
¨
der Holzbrucke, die von der Landstraße zum Dorf fuhrte, und blickte in die
¨
¨
scheinbare Leere empor.18
To take this further: Stifter is part of a specifically German phenomenon
that goes back at least as far as Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris: an unbearable
sense of guilt, besmirchment and wrongdoing, and a concomitant an-
guished fixation on the question of who or what is responsible. These
obsessions haunt the work of Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Buchner, Hebbel;
¨
they lie at the heart of both Naturalism and Expressionism; they reach
their terrible apotheosis in the Nazis’ maniacal attempt to achieve purifi-
cation through annihilation. In this respect, there seems no doubt that
Stifter’s work is indeed Kafka’s avant la lettre; Stifter is so to speak Kafka
in a different key – apparently sunnier, but in truth no less menacing.
This notion of ‘Verschulden’, a sense of unappeasable guilt and spiritual
rottenness, is perhaps one reason why disease features so strongly in Stif-
ter’s fiction – and in this respect, it is particularly telling that the plague
in ‘Granit’ is compared to a ‘Strafgericht’ (2,2: 37). In ‘Abdias’, the protag-
16 Few critics see the ambivalence in the text; the most notable example is Reddick, who asserts:
‘To ignore the antinomy of Verblendung/Verhangniß is to betray a fundamental blindness to the
¨
rich and dark ambiguities of the text’ (John Reddick, ‘Mystification, Perspectivism and Symbolism
in Der Hochwald’, in Lachinger, Stillmark and Swales (eds), Adalbert Stifter heute, Linz 1985, p. 70).
17 See John Reddick, ‘Tiger und Tugend in Stifter’s Kalkstein: Eine Polemik’, ZfdPh, 95 (1976),
235–55.
18 Kafka, Das Schloß, p. 5.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
39
onist’s scarred face does indeed serve on a textual level to demonstrate
Deborah’s blindness to his inner beauty; but on a subtextual level it
becomes symbolic: not least in his own eyes it is an outward manifestation
of his inner repulsiveness, indeed of the repulsiveness of humanity in gen-
eral. ‘Die Mappe’ most notably, perhaps, has disease as its central theme;
particularly proto-Kafkaesque is the scene in which the wounded boy is
brought to the doctor. His wound is initially diagnosed as ‘eine kleine
Wunde’ (MSB 248), but the doctor is horrified when he starts to excise
the boy’s cancer-like growths (‘Afterbildungen’) and has to cut ever more
deeply to get to ‘pure’ flesh (‘reine Gebilde’):
Ich entfernte mit dem scharfen Messer die Afterbildungen. Das Messer
wurde aber hiebei immer weiter und weiter gefuhrt, daß es mich fast selber
¨
schauerte, und daß ich dachte, ob ich denn weiter gehen durfe. Aber es
¨
mußte sein, ich empfahl meine Seele Gott, und tat es. Ich war ganz allein,
und hatte niemanden, der mir helfen konnte. Der Kranke hielt sich ruhig,
und gab keinen Laut von sich. Endlich war ich fertig, und es waren nur
reine Gebilde sichtbar. Aber es war eine Flache bloß gelegt, so groß, wie ich
¨
mir vorher nicht gedacht hatte, und an einer Stelle war mir, als sahe ich
¨
unter dem Hautchen die Lunge wallen. (MSB 250)
¨
Augustinus is in essentially the same position as Kafka’s ‘Landarzt’, who
tells his boy-patient: ‘Ich habe deine große Wunde aufgefunden; an
dieser Blume in deiner Seite gehst du zugrunde’.19 Kafka’s characters
too, like Stifter’s, are on this grim view doomed by their own poisonous
affliction. This is nowhere more poignantly or clearly expressed than by
the scene in Witiko where the protagonist goes to visit one of his
wounded men:
Witiko ging zu dem Manne in das holzerne Haus der Verwundeten, und
¨
sprach zu ihm: ‘Sebastian, sie haben mir gesagt, daß du bekummert bist,
¨
aber deine Wunde heilt schon, und du wirst sehr bald wie fruher unter
¨
uns sein.’
‘Sie heilt,’ antwortete Sebastian, ‘aber innerlich ist Alles anders’. (5,3: 61)
The shared vision is again emphasised by the final sentiment of ‘Ein Land-
arzt’: ‘es ist niemals gutzumachen’,20 for Stifter fears exactly the same
thing. Equally proto-Kafkaesque is Stifter’s obsession with guilt: there
seems to be little essential difference between Stifter’s pronouncement
that ‘Wir sind [%] die Grunder unseres Gluckes oder die Grunder unseres
¨
¨
¨
Elendes’ (GW VI: 393), and that terrible dictum in Kafka’s ‘In der Strafko-
lonie’: ‘Der Grundsatz, nach dem ich entscheide, ist: Die Schuld ist
immer zweifellos’.21
19 Kafka, Erzahlungen, p. 151.
¨
20 Ibid., p. 153.
21 Ibid., p. 206.
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

40
VERBLENDUNG AND VERSCHULDEN IN STIFTER
In many respects, Stifter is essentially in the same bind that all his great
(German) predecessors were in. Following the confident expectations
engendered by the Enlightenment, figures such as Holderlin, Kleist,
¨
Buchner, Schiller, Hoffmann, Tieck and Novalis all supposed and/or
¨
hoped that Utopia might or would be achievable in the future (or in some
‘fourth dimension’ of the present, such as Hoffmann’s ‘Atlantis’, Novalis’s
mountain, Tieck’s elfin community). But what most of these authors actu-
ally trace out is the agonising dystopia that meanwhile prevails. And what
makes Stifter particularly fascinating is that he is permanently in two minds
as to who or what is at fault: human beings for their misperceptions, their
‘Einseitigkeit’, their tendency to indulge in ‘Mißbrauch’ – or Existence
for being an ‘unermeßlicher Abgrund’, and for not accommodating the
likes of Ronald. As Kleist’s Sylvester puts it:
Gott der Gerechtigkeit!
Sprich deutlich mit dem Menschen, daß er’s weiß
Auch, was er soll!22
This is what Stifter, like Kafka, incessantly, thrillingly, even frighteningly
explores beneath the bland and often smug veneer of ‘Maß’, ‘Sittlichkeit’,
‘das sanfte Gesez’. And what makes him far more disturbing than Kafka
is precisely the absolute disjuncture between the unruffled surface and
the volcanic stirrings and ructions underneath.
22 Heinrich von Kleist, Samtliche Werke, Munich 1968, p. 310.
¨
 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.