Tonio Kröger
Tonio Kröger is a novella by Thomas Mann, written early in 1901, when he was 25.
Quotes
[edit]as translated by H. Lowe-Porter in Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories (1930)
- Wer am meisten liebt, ist der Unterlegene und muß leiden.
- He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.
- p. 78
- He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.
- Hans Hansen hatte ihn im Grunde ein wenig gern, wenn sie unter sich waren, er wußte es. Aber kam ein dritter, so schämte er sich dessen und opferte ihn auf.
- Hans Hansen did like him a little, when they were alone, that he knew. But let a third person come, he was ashamed.
- p. 84
- Hans Hansen did like him a little, when they were alone, that he knew. But let a third person come, he was ashamed.
- Er hatte eine verwöhnte und selbstbewußte Art, seine Sympathien und Abneigungen kundzugeben, sie gleichsam gnädigst zu verteilen.
- Hans … had a spoilt and arbitrary way of announcing his likes and dislikes, as though graciously pleased to confer them like an order on this person and that.
- p. 84
- Hans … had a spoilt and arbitrary way of announcing his likes and dislikes, as though graciously pleased to confer them like an order on this person and that.
- … weshalb alle diese wundervoll beherrschte Körperlichkeit ihm im Grunde etwas wie Bewunderung abgewann.
- … roused in him something like admiration of all this wonderfully controlled corporeality.
- p. 87
- … roused in him something like admiration of all this wonderfully controlled corporeality.
- Wie ruhevoll und unverwirrbar Herrn Knaaks Augen blickten! Sie sahen nicht in die Dinge hinein, bis dorthin, wo sie kompliziert und traurig werden; sie wußten nichts, als daß sie braun und schön seien. Aber deshalb war seine Haltung so stolz! Ja, man mußte dumm sein, um so schreiten zu können wie er; und dann wurde man geliebt, denn man war liebenswürdig.
- How tranquil, how imperturbable was Herr Knaak’s gaze! His eyes did not plumb the depth of things to the place where life becomes complex and melancholy; they knew nothing save that they were beautiful brown eyes. But that was just why his bearing was so proud. To be able to walk like that, one must be stupid; then one was loved, then one was lovable.
- p. 87
- How tranquil, how imperturbable was Herr Knaak’s gaze! His eyes did not plumb the depth of things to the place where life becomes complex and melancholy; they knew nothing save that they were beautiful brown eyes. But that was just why his bearing was so proud. To be able to walk like that, one must be stupid; then one was loved, then one was lovable.
- Zu fühlen, wie wunderbare spielende und schwermütige Kräfte sich in dir regen, und dabei zu wissen, daß diejenigen, zu denen du dich hinübersehnst, ihnen in heiterer Unzugänglichkeit gegenüberstehen, das tut sehr weh.
- To feel the wonderfully playful and melancholy forces rage within you, and to be aware that to those you yearn for they remain blithely inaccessible—what pain this is!
- Happiness, he told himself, is not in being loved—which is a satisfaction of the vanity and mingled with disgust. Happiness is in loving, and perhaps in snatching fugitive little approaches to the beloved object.
- p. 91
- Er ergab sich ganz der Macht, die ihm als die erhabenste auf Erden erschien, zu deren Dienst er sich berufen fühlte, und die ihm Hoheit und Ehren versprach, der Macht des Geistes und Wortes, die lächelnd über dem unbewußten und stummen Leben thront. Mit seiner jungen Leidenschaft ergab er sich ihr, und sie lohnte ihm mit allem, was sie zu schenken hat, und nahm ihm unerbittlich all das, was sie als Entgelt dafür zu nehmen pflegt.
- Sie schärfte seinen Blick und ließ ihn die großen Wörter durchschauen, die der Menschen Busen blähen, sie erschloß ihm der Menschen Seelen und seine eigene, machte ihn hellsehend und zeigte ihm das Innere der Welt und alles Letzte, was hinter den Worten und Taten ist. Was er aber sah, war dies: Komik und Elend—Komik und Elend.
- He surrendered utterly to the power that to him seemed the highest on earth, to whose service he felt called, which promised him elevation and honours: the power of the intellect, the power of the word, that lords with a smile over the unconscious and inarticulate. To this power he surrendered with all the passion of youth, and it rewarded him with all it had to give, taking from him inexorably, in return, all that it is wont to take.
- It sharpened his eyes and made him see through the large words which puff out the bosoms of mankind; it opened for him men’s souls and his own, made him clairvoyant, showed him the innermost part of the world and the ultimate behind men’s words and deeds.
- pp. 92-93
- Da kam, mit der Qual und dem Hochmut der Erkenntnis, die Einsamkeit, weil es ihn im Kreise der Harmlosen mit dem fröhlich dunklen Sinn nicht litt und das Mal an seiner Stirn sie verstörte.
- With knowledge, its torment and its arrogance, came solitude; because he could not endure the blithe and innocent with their darkened understanding, while they in turn were troubled by the sign on his brow.
- p. 93
- With knowledge, its torment and its arrogance, came solitude; because he could not endure the blithe and innocent with their darkened understanding, while they in turn were troubled by the sign on his brow.
- Er pflegte zu sagen (und hatte es auch bereits aufgeschrieben), daß die Kenntnis der Seele allein unfehlbar trübsinnig machen würde, wenn nicht die Vergnügungen des Ausdrucks uns wach und munter erhielten.
- Knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and in good cheer.
- p. 93
- Knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and in good cheer.
- Vielleicht war es das Erbteil seines Vaters in ihm, des langen, sinnenden, reinlich gekleideten Mannes mit der Feldblume im Knopfloch, das ihn dort unten so leiden machte und manchmal eine schwache, sehnsüchtige Erinnerung in ihm sich regen ließ an eine Lust der Seele, die einstmals sein eigen gewesen war, und die er in allen Lüsten nicht wiederfand.
- Now and again he would feel a faint, yearning memory of a certain joy that was of the soul; once it had been his own, but now, in all his joys, he could not find it again.
- p. 93
- Now and again he would feel a faint, yearning memory of a certain joy that was of the soul; once it had been his own, but now, in all his joys, he could not find it again.
- In dem Maße, wie seine Gesundheit geschwächt ward, verschärfte sich seine Künstlerschaft, ward wählerisch, erlesen, kostbar, fein, reizbar gegen das Banale und aufs höchste empfindlich in Fragen des Taktes und Geschmacks.
- As his health suffered from these excesses, so his artistry was sharpened; it grew fastidious, precious, raffiné, morbidly sensitive in questions of tact and taste, rasped by the banal.
- p. 94
- As his health suffered from these excesses, so his artistry was sharpened; it grew fastidious, precious, raffiné, morbidly sensitive in questions of tact and taste, rasped by the banal.
- Schnell ward sein Name, derselbe, mit dem ihn einst seine Lehrer scheltend gerufen hatten, derselbe, mit dem er seine ersten Reime an den Walnußbaum, den Springbrunnen und das Meer unterzeichnet hatte, dieser aus Süd und Nord zusammengesetzte Klang, dieser exotisch angehauchte Bürgersname zu einer Formel, die Vortreffliches bezeichnete; denn der schmerzlichen Gründlichkeit seiner Erfahrungen gesellte sich ein seltener, zäh ausharrender und ehrsüchtiger Fleiß, der im Kampf mit der wählerischen Reizbarkeit seines Geschmacks unter heftigen Qualen ungewöhnliche Werke entstehen ließ.
- The painful thoroughness of the experiences he had gone through, combined with a tenacious ambition and a persistent industry, joined battle with the irritable fastidiousness of his taste, and, under grinding torments, issued in work of a quality quite uncommon.
- p. 94
- The painful thoroughness of the experiences he had gone through, combined with a tenacious ambition and a persistent industry, joined battle with the irritable fastidiousness of his taste, and, under grinding torments, issued in work of a quality quite uncommon.
- Er arbeitete nicht wie jemand, der arbeitet, um zu leben, sondern wie einer, der nichts will als arbeiten, weil er sich als lebendigen Menschen für nichts achtet, nur als Schaffender in Betracht zu kommen wünscht und im übrigen grau und unauffällig umhergeht, wie ein abgeschminkter Schauspieler, der nichts ist, solange er nichts darzustellen hat.
- He worked, not like a man who works that he may live; but as one who is bent on doing nothing but work; having no regard for himself as a human being but only as a creator; moving about grey and unobtrusive among his fellows like an actor without his make-up, who counts for nothing as soon as he stops representing something else.
- p. 94
- He worked, not like a man who works that he may live; but as one who is bent on doing nothing but work; having no regard for himself as a human being but only as a creator; moving about grey and unobtrusive among his fellows like an actor without his make-up, who counts for nothing as soon as he stops representing something else.
- Er arbeitete stumm, abgeschlossen, unsichtbar und voller Verachtung für jene Kleinen, denen das Talent ein geselliger Schmuck war, die, ob sie nun arm oder reich waren, wild und abgerissen einhergingen oder mit persönlichen Krawatten Luxus trieben, in erster Linie glücklich, liebenswürdig und künstlerisch zu leben bedacht waren, unwissend darüber, daß gute Werke nur unter dem Druck eines schlimmen Lebens entstehen, daß, wer lebt, nicht arbeitet, und daß man gestorben sein muß, um ganz ein Schaffender zu sein.
- He worked withdrawn out of sight and sound of the small men, for whom he felt nothing but contempt, who, whether they were poor or not, went about ostentatiously shabby or else flaunted startling cravats, all the time taking jolly good care to amuse themselves, to be artistic and charming without the smallest notion of the fact that good work comes out only under pressure of a bad life; that he who lives does not work; the one must die to life in order to be utterly a creator.
- p. 94
- He worked withdrawn out of sight and sound of the small men, for whom he felt nothing but contempt, who, whether they were poor or not, went about ostentatiously shabby or else flaunted startling cravats, all the time taking jolly good care to amuse themselves, to be artistic and charming without the smallest notion of the fact that good work comes out only under pressure of a bad life; that he who lives does not work; the one must die to life in order to be utterly a creator.
- Beherrscht dich ein Gedanke, so findest du ihn überall ausgedrückt, du riechst ihn sogar im Winde.
- If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere.
- p. 96
- If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere.
- Man ist als Künstler innerlich immer Abenteurer genug. Äußerlich soll man sich gut anziehen, zum Teufel, und sich benehmen wie ein anständiger Mensch.
- Every artist is as bohemian as the deuce inside! Let him at least wear proper clothes and behave outwardly like a respectable being.
- p. 97
- Every artist is as bohemian as the deuce inside! Let him at least wear proper clothes and behave outwardly like a respectable being.
- Man arbeitet schlecht im Frühling, gewiß, und warum? Weil man empfindet. Und weil der ein Stümper ist, der glaubt, der Schaffende dürfe empfinden. Jeder echte und aufrichtige Künstler lächelt über die Naivität dieses Pfuscher-Irrtums,—melancholisch vielleicht, aber er lächelt. Denn das, was man sagt, darf ja niemals die Hauptsache sein, sondern nur das an und für sich gleichgültige Material, aus dem das ästhetische Gebilde in spielender und gelassener Überlegenheit zusammenzusetzen ist. Liegt Ihnen zu viel an dem, was Sie zu sagen haben, schlägt Ihr Herz zu warm dafür, so können Sie eines vollständigen Fiaskos sicher sein. Sie werden pathetisch, Sie werden sentimental, etwas Schwerfälliges, Täppisch-Ernstes, Unbeherrschtes, Unironisches, Ungewürztes, Langweiliges, Banales entsteht unter Ihren Händen, und nichts als Gleichgültigkeit bei den Leuten, nichts als Enttäuschung und Jammer bei Ihnen selbst ist das Ende… Denn so ist es ja, Lisaweta: Das Gefühl, das warme, herzliche Gefühl ist immer banal und unbrauchbar, und künstlerisch sind bloß die Gereiztheiten und kalten Ekstasen unseres verdorbenen, unseres artistischen Nervensystems. Es ist nötig, daß man irgend etwas Außermenschliches und Unmenschliches sei, daß man zum Menschlichen in einem seltsam fernen und unbeteiligten Verhältnis stehe, um imstande und überhaupt versucht zu sein, es zu spielen, damit zu spielen, es wirksam und geschmackvoll darzustellen. Die Begabung für Stil, Form und Ausdruck setzt bereits dies kühle und wählerische Verhältnis zum Menschlichen, ja, eine gewisse menschliche Verarmung und Verödung voraus. Denn das gesunde und starke Gefühl, dabei bleibt es, hat keinen Geschmack. Es ist aus mit dem Künstler, sobald er Mensch wird und zu empfinden beginnt.
- Nobody but a beginner imagines that he who creates must feel. Every real and genuine artist smiles at such naïve blunders as that. A melancholy enough smile, perhaps, but still a smile. For what an artist talks about is never the main point; it is the raw material, in and for itself indifferent, out of which, with bland and serene mastery, he creates the work of art. If you care too much about what you have to say, if your heart is too much in it, you can be pretty sure of making a mess. You get pathetic, you wax sentimental; something dull and doddering, without roots or outlines, with no sense of humor—something tiresome and banal grows under your hand, and you get nothing out it but apathy in your audience and disappointment and misery in yourself. For so it is, Lisabeta; feeling, warm, heartfelt feeling, is always banal and futile; only the irritations and icy ecstasies of the artist’s corrupted nervous system are artistic. The artist must be unhuman, extra-human; he must stand in a queer aloof relationship to our humanity; only so is he in a position, I ought to say only so would he be tempted, to represent it, to present it, to portray it to good effect. The very gift of style, of form and expression, is nothing else than this cool and fastidious attitude towards humanity; you might say there has to be this impoverishment and devastation as a preliminary condition. For sound natural feeling, say what you like, has no taste. It is all up with the artist as soon as he becomes a man and begins to feel.
- pp. 97-98
- Nobody but a beginner imagines that he who creates must feel. Every real and genuine artist smiles at such naïve blunders as that. A melancholy enough smile, perhaps, but still a smile. For what an artist talks about is never the main point; it is the raw material, in and for itself indifferent, out of which, with bland and serene mastery, he creates the work of art. If you care too much about what you have to say, if your heart is too much in it, you can be pretty sure of making a mess. You get pathetic, you wax sentimental; something dull and doddering, without roots or outlines, with no sense of humor—something tiresome and banal grows under your hand, and you get nothing out it but apathy in your audience and disappointment and misery in yourself. For so it is, Lisabeta; feeling, warm, heartfelt feeling, is always banal and futile; only the irritations and icy ecstasies of the artist’s corrupted nervous system are artistic. The artist must be unhuman, extra-human; he must stand in a queer aloof relationship to our humanity; only so is he in a position, I ought to say only so would he be tempted, to represent it, to present it, to portray it to good effect. The very gift of style, of form and expression, is nothing else than this cool and fastidious attitude towards humanity; you might say there has to be this impoverishment and devastation as a preliminary condition. For sound natural feeling, say what you like, has no taste. It is all up with the artist as soon as he becomes a man and begins to feel.
- Ich sage Ihnen, daß ich es oft sterbensmüde bin, das Menschliche darzustellen, ohne am Menschlichen teilzuhaben.
- I am sick to death of depicting humanity without having any part or lot in it.
- p. 99
- I am sick to death of depicting humanity without having any part or lot in it.
- Ist der Künstler überhaupt ein Mann? … Mir scheint, wir Künstler teilen alle ein wenig das Schicksal jener präparierten päpstlichen Sänger… Wir singen ganz rührend schön. Jedoch –
- Is an artist a male? … It seems to me we artists are all of us something like those unsexed papal singers. We sing like angels; but—
- p. 99
- Is an artist a male? … It seems to me we artists are all of us something like those unsexed papal singers. We sing like angels; but—
- Die Literatur ist überhaupt kein Beruf, sondern ein Fluch. … Sie fangen an, sich gezeichnet, sich in einem rätselhaften Gegensatz zu den anderen, den Gewöhnlichen, den Ordentlichen zu fühlen, der Abgrund von Ironie, Unglaube, Opposition, Erkenntnis, Gefühl, der Sie von den Menschen trennt, klafft tiefer und tiefer, Sie sind einsam, und fortan gibt es keine Verständigung mehr. Was für ein Schicksal! Gesetzt, daß das Herz lebendig genug, liebevoll genug geblieben ist, es als furchtbar zu empfinden!… Ihr Selbstbewußtsein entzündet sich, weil Sie unter Tausenden das Zeichen an Ihrer Stirne spüren und fühlen, daß es niemandem entgeht.
- Literature is not a calling, it is a curse! … It begins by your feeling yourself set apart, in a curious sort of opposition to the nice, regular people; there is a gulf of ironic sensibility, of knowledge, skepticism, disagreement between you and others; it grows deeper and deeper, you realize that you are alone; and from then on any rapprochement is simply hopeless! What a fate! That is, if you still have enough heart, enough warmth of affections, to feel how frightful it is! Your self-consciousness is kindled, because you among thousands feel the sign on your brow and know that everyone else sees it.
- p. 99
- Literature is not a calling, it is a curse! … It begins by your feeling yourself set apart, in a curious sort of opposition to the nice, regular people; there is a gulf of ironic sensibility, of knowledge, skepticism, disagreement between you and others; it grows deeper and deeper, you realize that you are alone; and from then on any rapprochement is simply hopeless! What a fate! That is, if you still have enough heart, enough warmth of affections, to feel how frightful it is! Your self-consciousness is kindled, because you among thousands feel the sign on your brow and know that everyone else sees it.
- Einen Künstler, einen wirklichen, nicht einen, dessen bürgerlicher Beruf die Kunst ist, sondern einen vorbestimmten und verdammten, ersehen Sie mit geringem Scharfblick aus einer Menschenmasse. Das Gefühl der Separation und Unzugehörigkeit, des Erkannt- und Beobachtetseins, etwas zugleich Königliches und Verlegenes ist in seinem Gesicht. In den Zügen eines Fürsten, der in Zivil durch eine Volksmenge schreitet, kann man etwas Ähnliches beobachten. Aber da hilft kein Zivil, Lisaweta! Verkleiden Sie sich, vermummen Sie sich, ziehen Sie sich an wie ein Attaché oder ein Gardeleutnant in Urlaub: Sie werden kaum die Augen aufzuschlagen und ein Wort zu sprechen brauchen, und jedermann wird wissen, daß Sie kein Mensch sind, sondern irgend etwas Fremdes, Befremdendes, Anderes.
- A genuine artist—not one who has taken up art as a profession like another, but artist foreordained and damned—you can pick out, without boasting very sharp perceptions, out of a group of men. His sense of being set apart and not belonging, of being known and observed, something both regal and incongruous, shows in his face. You might see something of the same sort on features of a prince walking though a crowd in ordinary clothes. But no civilian clothes are any good here, Lisabeta. You can disguise yourself, you can dress up like an attaché or a lieutenant of the guard on leave; you hardly need to give a glance or speak a word before everyone knows you are not a human being, but something else: something queer, different, inimical.
- pp. 99-100
- A genuine artist—not one who has taken up art as a profession like another, but artist foreordained and damned—you can pick out, without boasting very sharp perceptions, out of a group of men. His sense of being set apart and not belonging, of being known and observed, something both regal and incongruous, shows in his face. You might see something of the same sort on features of a prince walking though a crowd in ordinary clothes. But no civilian clothes are any good here, Lisabeta. You can disguise yourself, you can dress up like an attaché or a lieutenant of the guard on leave; you hardly need to give a glance or speak a word before everyone knows you are not a human being, but something else: something queer, different, inimical.
- Aber was ist der Künstler? Vor keiner Frage hat die Bequemlichkeit und Erkenntnisträgheit der Menschheit sich zäher erwiesen als vor dieser. ›Dergleichen ist Gabe‹, sagen demütig die braven Leute, die unter der Wirkung eines Künstlers stehen, und weil heitere und erhabene Wirkungen nach ihrer gutmütigen Meinung ganz unbedingt auch heitere und erhabene Ursprünge haben müssen, so argwöhnt niemand, daß es sich hier vielleicht um eine äußerst schlimm bedingte, äußerst fragwürdige ›Gabe‹ handelt.
- What is it to be an artist? Nothing shows up the general human dislike of thinking, and man’s innate carving to be comfortable, better than his attitude to this question. When these worthy people are affected by a work of art, they say humbly that that sort of thing is a ‘gift.’ And because in their innocence they assume that beautiful and uplifting results must have beautiful and uplifting causes, they never dream that the ‘gift’ in question is a very dubious affair and rests upon extremely sinister foundations.
- p. 100
- What is it to be an artist? Nothing shows up the general human dislike of thinking, and man’s innate carving to be comfortable, better than his attitude to this question. When these worthy people are affected by a work of art, they say humbly that that sort of thing is a ‘gift.’ And because in their innocence they assume that beautiful and uplifting results must have beautiful and uplifting causes, they never dream that the ‘gift’ in question is a very dubious affair and rests upon extremely sinister foundations.
- I can defend your profession … by reminding you … of the purifying and healing influence of letters, the subduing of the passions by knowledge and eloquence; literature as the guide to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming power of the word, literary art as the noblest manifestation of the human mind, the poet as the most highly developed of human beings, the poet as saint.
- p. 101
- Eine andere, aber nicht minder liebenswürdige Seite der Sache ist dann freilich die Blasiertheit, Gleichgültigkeit und ironische Müdigkeit aller Wahrheit gegenüber, wie es denn Tatsache ist, daß es nirgends in der Welt stummer und hoffnungsloser zugeht als in einem Kreise von geistreichen Leuten, die bereits mit allen Hunden gehetzt sind. Alle Erkenntnis ist alt und langweilig. Sprechen Sie eine Wahrheit aus, an deren Eroberung und Besitz Sie vielleicht eine gewisse jugendliche Freude haben, und man wird Ihre ordinäre Aufgeklärtheit mit einem ganz kurzen Entlassen der Luft durch die Nase beantworten.
- Another … side of the thing, of course, is your ennui, your indifferent and ironic attitude towards truth. It is a fact that there is no society in the world so dumb and hopeless as a circle of literary people. … All knowledge is old and tedious to them. Utter some truth that it gave you considerable youthful joy to conquer and possess—and they will all chortle at you for you naïveté.
- p. 102
- Another … side of the thing, of course, is your ennui, your indifferent and ironic attitude towards truth. It is a fact that there is no society in the world so dumb and hopeless as a circle of literary people. … All knowledge is old and tedious to them. Utter some truth that it gave you considerable youthful joy to conquer and possess—and they will all chortle at you for you naïveté.
- Der Literat begreift im Grunde nicht, daß das Leben noch fortfahren mag, zu leben, daß es sich dessen nicht schämt, nachdem es doch ausgesprochen und ›erledigt‹ ist. Aber siehe da, es sündigt trotz aller Erlösung durch die Literatur unentwegt darauf los.
- The literary man does not understand that life may go on living, unashamed, even after it has been expressed and therewith finished. No matter how much it has been redeemed by becoming literature, it keeps right on sinning.
- p. 103
- The literary man does not understand that life may go on living, unashamed, even after it has been expressed and therewith finished. No matter how much it has been redeemed by becoming literature, it keeps right on sinning.
- Alles Handeln ist Sünde in den Augen des Geistes.
- All action is sin in the mind’s eye.
- p. 103
- All action is sin in the mind’s eye.
- There he stood, suffering embarrassment for the mistake of thinking that one may pluck a single leaf from the laurel tree of art without paying for it with one’s life.
- p. 106
