Five Minutes of Silence

Three nameless people who didn't know each other before come together on stage, i.e., in a room filled with the waste of affluence, such as cardboard boxes, beverage cans, plastic tarps, and fabric scraps. They decide to just not say anything for five minutes, to listen to the silence and the wind in the cornfield, to the birds in the branches, to feel their own heartbeats.

So, everyone shut up, everyone just enjoy the silence, five minutes without an opinion, don't say a word for 5 minutes ... starting now.

They are in complete agreement that this would help us move forward, right here, in this very place. Yet, turning off the constant background noise of opinions and attitudes for just five minutes is more complicated than initially assumed.

Leo Meier, actor and the playwright of Fünf Minuten Stille, studied dramatics and philosophy in Bochum and acting at the Folkwang University of the Arts. Meier crafted the play as a self-critical, absurdist, and entertaining play. It is a refreshingly witty drama full of liberating humor about the desire for peace and quiet in a noisy world.

The three actors long for silence but remain stuck in debate and complaint about the state of the world, since "intelligence is only useful if you're smart enough to use it properly."

"I'd thought about that too - saving the world or something along those lines. We already have the evil part down. But it's good that we're saying it again!"

And so the chatter goes on.

During 90 minutes, the three protagonists pour a torrent of words over the audience. The Wallgraben trio performs linguistically brilliant, chaotic theater. They impress with their gestures, anarchic joy, and wonderful wit.

Near the end, the audience lived through five minutes of silence, as the three sat around a freshly planted tree on stage. While Red Baron deliberated how they knew, when the five minutes had passed, a voice from off announced that the five minutes were not yet over.

The world out there needs improvement, but how? The three agree on one thing: It's the fault of those out there. Hell is the other people.

The male protagonist admits that he has a small car with only one door, drives at 120 km/h, and that, living in the countryside, where public transportation is practically nonexistent, he uses his car only in very special emergencies. One such emergency is his terminally ill father, whom he has to visit at the city hospital. Yet it turns out that his father, a retiree, scraped together his savings to fly to Australia. While surfing at the beach, a shark bit off his head. It's simply impossible for the plot of the play to get any more absurd than that.

Near the end, the male and one of the female actors leave the stage not to save the world, but to save his vintage Padoda-style Mercedes convertible from the scratches of an angry mob running amok outside.

Don't just talk - take action. So the last actress on stage finds a transparent plastic jumpsuit, puts it on, and begins filling it, little by little, with the trash of affluence. Then, exhausted, she collapses like an inflated doll onto the rest of the rubbish, which she can no longer dispose of on her own. She is filled up.

©Lars Peterson on Facebook

The thunderous applause and the many curtains were well deserved.

**

Ian McKellen

I must confess my shame that I was not familiar with this legendary 86-year-old actor.

My loyal readers know that I regularly watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His monologues are hilarious. As a non-English speaker, I often have to think long and hard before I understand a pun.

After his solo performance, Stephen welcomes guests, and that's when I usually switch off.

But on February 5, a sonoric voice caught my attention. Sir Ian McKellen fascinated me with his fine British accent and humor. I stayed tuned until the end of the 26-minute interview. Towards the end, Ian talked about a literary find. Here is a partial transcript of the interview:

Ian: Shakespeare wrote many plays, 37 of them, by himself, but he also contributed to other people's shows. And one of the speeches he wrote for a play called Thomas More has been preserved. And it’s the only sample of his actual handwriting of some of the words of a play by him. And it’s not in the Fuller library. It’s in the British Library; you can see it. It’s on display there in London.


And hark. On December 23 last year, I published a blog post that drew only mediocre interest from my readers. The blog addressed the Thomas More manuscript by William Shakespeare that I read in 2015 and had since forgotten.


Ian McKellen continued: And it happened that the play was never performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime because it was thought to be a bit seditious.

It had its actual premiere on stage in 1964. It was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, and I played Thomas More. So you are looking at a man who created a part by William Shakespeare.

Stephen: So this is handwritten. They know this is his handwriting of this monologue that you did ...

Ian: ... of a speech you probably don’t know but you ought to because it’s a wonderful speech.

Stephen: I don’t know that. Would you mind? Would you mind doing it for us?

Ian: No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t mind because you’ll enjoy it. All right. Live Theatre.

Stephen: What’s the setting?

Ian: It’s all happening 400 years ago and in London. There’s a riot happening, there’s a mob out in the streets, and they’re complaining about the presence of strangers in London, by which they mean the recent immigrants who arrived there. And they’re shouting the odds and complaining, and saying that the immigrants should be sent back home wherever they came from. And the authorities sent out this young lawyer, Thomas More, to put down the riot, which he does in two ways, one by saying that you can’t riot like this. It’s against the law. So shut up, be quiet, and also being by Shakespeare with an appeal to their humanity. So, in order to set it up, we really need somebody to shout that the strangers should be removed. Could someone do that?

And the audience shouts: The strangers be removed!

Because of the present situation in the ICE age, Ian McKellen’s performance went viral online.  

Here is a DEEP DIVE helping native speakers with Shakespeare’s English.

And finally, here is the whole 26-minute interview with Ian McKellen.

**

At the School of Seeing

In a previous lecture, Sandra Richter showed some of Rilke's sketches that he continued to make throughout his life. His drawings are restrained and more meditative than virtuosic. They often depict landscapes, architecture, gardens, or figures in tranquil poses; they seem like visual counterparts to his poetry: focused, simplified, directed toward the essential. 

Once again, Professor Frick gave us an extraordinary lecture, showing that Rilke viewed drawing as a distinct form of seeing and contemplation.

Auguste Rodin in his atelier

Rilke deepened this approach particularly during his time in Paris, in the circle of Auguste Rodin. Close observation, patient work, and engagement with the subject were to characterize both his drawing and his writing.

While rarely creating illustrations for his own texts, drawing was more important to him as a means of training his perception.  His drawings provide an intimate insight into Rilke's artistic self-image beyond language.

As a “learnt“ physicist, I was unable to even begin to grasp the depth into which Prof. Frick drew his audience. I have selected four poems from Neue Gedichte (1907) and Neue Gedichte anderer Teil (1908). But instead of trying to analyze them, I would like to make a few personal comments.

Given Rilke's eloquence and his powerful use of language, translating his poems into other languages proves problematic. Red Baron found translations of three of my selected poems on the Internet. I attempted to translate the fourth myself.

Rilke's poem Das Karussell (The Carousel) brings back memories of my late wife Elisabeth. As a child, she spent time in France in 1946, after the war, when her father, a high school teacher of German, French, and English (!), worked as a translator in Vernon.

After the Americans had already "recruited" Wernher von Braun, the French had to make do with the second choice of German rocket scientists, whom they gathered in Vernon. These physicists and engineers naturally did not speak French.

Elisabeth rode the carousel in the Jardin de Luxembourg during a trip to Paris at that time, and her father quoted Rilke. She remembered the line, "And now and then a white elephant," when we took a walk in the Jardin in 2002.

  

Das Karussel

The Carousel

Mit einem Dach und seinem Schatten dreht sich eine kleine Weile der Bestand von bunten Pferden, alle aus dem Land, das lange zögert, eh es untergeht. Zwar manche sind an Wagen angespannt, doch alle haben Mut in ihren Mienen; ein böser roter Löwe geht mit ihnen und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Sogar ein Hirsch ist da, ganz wie im Wald, nur dass er einen Sattel trägt und drüber ein kleines blaues Mädchen aufgeschnallt. Und auf dem Löwen reitet weiß ein Junge und hält sich mit der kleinen heißen Hand dieweil der Löwe Zähne zeigt und Zunge. Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Und auf den Pferden kommen sie vorüber, auch Mädchen, helle, diesem Pferdesprunge fast schon entwachsen; mitten in dem Schwunge schauen sie auf, irgendwohin, herüber –. Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Und das geht hin und eilt sich, dass es endet, und kreist und dreht sich nur und hat kein Ziel. Ein Rot, ein Grün, ein Grau vorbeigesendet, ein kleines kaum begonnenes Profil –. Und manchesmal ein Lächeln, hergewendet, ein seliges, das blendet und verschwendet an dieses atemlose blinde Spiel ... *

Beneath a roof and with its shadow spins for just a little while the stock of painted horses—all are from the land that lingers on before it vanishes. Though some are hitched to carriages, they all show fierceness in their faces; a frightening red lion walks among them and now and then there's a white elephant. Even a stag is there, like in the woods, except he bears a saddle and above it a little blue girl, firmly fastened. And on the lion rides a boy in white, who holds on with a small hot hand; meanwhile the lion shows his teeth and tongue. And now and then there's a white elephant. And on the horses they come passing by, girls also luminous, almost too grown up to join this horse ride; in mid-swing they look up, somewhere, this way -. And now and then there's a white elephant. And so it goes and hurries up to finish, and turns and circles only without aim. A red, a green, a gray sent gliding by, a little profile, barely seen and gone -. And every now and then a smile, turned hither, enchanted, ravishing, and lavishing upon this blind and breathless game ... Translated by Ulrich Fleming

When Prof. Frick cited Rilke's sonnet "Blaue Hortensie", an image vividly appeared in my memory.

Last fall, I was walking in Kirchzarten, a small town west of Freiburg, admiring the flowers in the front yards. Judge for yourself:

Blaue Hortensie

Blue Hortensia

So wie das letzte Grün in Farbentiegeln sind diese Blätter, trocken, stumpf und rauh, hinter den Blütendolden, die ein Blau nicht auf sich tragen, nur von ferne spiegeln. Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau, als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren, und wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren ist Gelb in ihnen, Violett und Grau; Verwaschenes wie an einer Kinderschürze, Nichtmehrgetragenes, dem nichts mehr geschieht: wie fühlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kürze. Doch plötzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen in einer von den Dolden, und man sieht ein rührend Blaues sich vor Grünem freuen.

Like the last green in paint pots these leaves, dry, dull, and rough, behind the flower clusters that do not bear a blue, only reflect it from afar. They reflect it tearfully and imprecisely, as if they wanted to lose it again, and as in old blue stationery there is yellow in them, violet, and gray; Washed out like on a child's apron, No longer worn, nothing happening to it anymore: how one feels the brevity of a small life. But suddenly the blue seems to renew itself in one of the umbels, and one sees a touching blue rejoicing before green.

I had my childhood experiences with wild animals in captivity in the Hamburg zoo.

At Hagenbecks Tierpark, animals did not vegetate behind bars, but "lived" in large outdoor enclosures. Still, I had the feeling that their situation was sad.

I remember how elephants stretched out their trunks across a large ditch to suck up treats visitors held out to them and then put them in their mouths.

And now and then, there was a gray elephant that swung its trunk toward a nearby keeper to give him the Groschen (penny) that a visitor had slipped under it instead of a treat.

25 years later, it was still the same scenario when I visited Hagenbeck Zoo with my children.

Painters at the Jardin des Plantes (1902)

DER PANTHER IM JARDIN DES PLANTES, PARIS

THE PANTHER AT THE PARIS BOTANICAL GARDEN

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht. Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf – Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille – und hört im Herzen auf zu sein. *

His gaze against the sweeping of the bars has grown so weary that it can hold no more. To him, there seems to be a thousand bars and behind those thousand bars, no world. The soft the supple step and sturdy pace, that in the smallest of all circles turns, moves like a dance of strength around a core in which a mighty will is standing stunned. Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides up soundlessly – An image enters then, goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs — and in the heart ceases to be. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum

Torso of Milet at the Louvre in Paris. Found in 1885.

Archaïscher Torso Apollos

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt, darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber, in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt, sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug. Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle; und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. *

We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned too low, gleams in all its power. Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. Otherwise, this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. Translated by Stephen Mitchell

The torso looks at us, and we don't look at the torso? I couldn't help thinking of Brecht's alienation. But Rilke's thoughts go deeper. We should not leave it at a superficial glance at the torso, but ask ourselves, who are we in the face of what is looking at us.

Lettering at the Freiburg Theater

And as I am now, I am not yet adequate to my life. I must change it.

**

You Need Not Understand Life

... or Rilke and his environment in his work was the title of a lecture by Professor Sandra Richter, Director of the German Literature Archive at Marbach, in the framework of the Studium generale.

You need not understand life,

for then it will be like a party.

And let each day happen to you

like a child walking along, letting each breeze

give it many blossoms.

To gather them and save them

does not occur to a child.

It quietly removes them from its hair,

where they were so readily caught,

and in its dear young years

holds out its hands to new ones.

Rainer Maria Rilke gave poetry a new existential depth. He is therefore considered one of the most important poets of modern German-speaking literature. He combined linguistic precision with philosophical openness, making inner experience, loneliness, love, and death his central poetic themes. Rilke's poetry seeks to recreate the world in words and to open readers' eyes to an intensified view of his existence.

Red Baron studied physics, grappled with theology and existential questions, and is not done with that yet. Why can't I be a Rilke child and just live for the day? Even at 90, I reach out for new things, but the past won't let me go and keeps me brooding. And what haven't I accumulated in my life that weighs on me in my old age?

Next, spirited Sara gave the audience insight into remarkable Rilke documents held in the Marbach Archive.

Rilke's sketch of the Council Building in Konstanz,
where, in 1417 (not 1415), a conclave elected Pope Martin V.

Rilke sketched throughout his life. His drawings are restrained and more meditative than virtuosic. They often depict landscapes, architecture, gardens, or figures in tranquil poses; they seem like visual counterparts to his poetry: focused, simplified, directed toward the essential. Drawing was important to him as a means of training his perception.

Peacock Feather

Unmatched in your delicacy,
how I loved you even as a child.
I thought you were a sign of love,
which the elves pass around
on cool nights by silver-still ponds,
when all the children are asleep.

And because my dear grandmother
often read to me from wish sticks,
I dreamed, you delicate creature,
that your fine fibers were imbued
with the clever power of the riddle stick -
and I searched for you in the summer grass.

Here is a sample of Rilke's calligraphic handwriting.

The Song of Love and Death of Cornettist Christoph Rilke
(written in 1899 and published in 1904, 1906, and 1912)

The Flamingos. Jardin des Plantes.
Autumn 1907 or Spring 1908 in Paris

In Spiegelbildern wie von Fragonard ist doch von ihrem Weiß und ihrer Röte nicht mehr gegeben, als dir einer böte, wenn er von seiner Freundin sagt: sie war noch sanft von Schlaf. Denn steigen sie ins Grüne und stehn, auf rosa Stielen leicht gedreht, beisammen, blühend, wie in einem Beet, verführen sie verführender als Phryne sich selber; bis sie ihres Auges Bleiche hinhalsend bergen in der eignen Weiche, in welcher Schwarz und Fruchtrot sich versteckt. Auf einmal kreischt ein Neid durch die Volière; sie aber haben sich erstaunt gestreckt und schreiten einzeln ins Imaginäre.

In mirror images like those of Fragonard there is no more of their whiteness and redness than one would offer you when speaking of his girlfriend: she was still gentle from sleep. For when they rise into the greenery and stand, slightly twisted on pink stems, together, blooming, as if in a flowerbed, they seduce more seductively than Phryne herself; until they hide the pallor of their eyes in their own softness, in which black and fruit red are hidden. Suddenly, envy screeches through the aviary; but they have stretched themselves in amazement and stride individually into the imaginary.

Pain and death.

Sketch of an angel. Pencil on paper, 1922

From Rilke's last notebook, XII/1926:
Come, you last one, whom I acknowledge

Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne, heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb: wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt, der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen, nun aber nähr' ich dich und brenn in dir. Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier. Ganz rein, ganz planlosfrei von Zukunft stieg ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen, so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg. Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt? Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein. O Leben, Leben: Draußensein. Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt.

Come, you last one I acknowledge, hopeless pain in my flesh: as I burned in spirit, see, I burn in you; the wood has long resisted to consent to the flame that you blaze, but now I feed you and burn in you. My gentleness here becomes in your fury a fury of hell not from here. Completely pure, completely free of plans for the future, I climbed onto the confused pyre of suffering, so sure that there was no future to buy for this heart, in which the supply was silent. Is it still me who burns unrecognizable there? I do not bring in memories. O life, life: being outside. And I in flames. No one who knows me.

Rilke's gravestone in Raron in Valais

Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch, Lust, Niemandes Schlaf zu sein unter soviel Lidern.

Rose, oh pure contradiction, desire, to be no one's sleep beneath so many eyelids.

**

Kochberg

The next stop on our cultural tour to Gotha was Kochberg Castle.

On the way to the summer residence of Baronesse von Stein, we passed "flourishing landscapes" on smooth roads that Chancellor Kohl had once promised to the residents of the GDR.

Freifrau von Stein in 1753. Oil painting by A. C. Meuser

There are wild rumors about Goethe's relationship with the married Frau von Stein. But first of all, how did the 26-year-old Frankfurter end up at the Weimar Court?

It was astonishing that the Duchess Anna Amalia of Weimar chose the young Goethe as an educational companion, mentor, and conversation partner for her son Karl August. But she was an educated, enlightened princess who recognized that her small court in Weimar needed to raise its cultural and intellectual profile.

So when the author of "The Sorrows of Werther," famous throughout Europe, arrived in Weimar in 1775, he was just the right man for the job. And Crownprince Karl August, who had just come of age, was delighted, because he was not looking for dry instruction, but an intellectual role model, a comrade with stature.

Anna Amalia trusted that the intensive exchange with a creative mind like Goethe would shape the young prince into a modern, enlightened ruler.

Young Goethe's appeal lay in his blunt, direct, and mostly conventional nature, but this did not go down well at court.

This is where Courtlady Charlotte von Stein, seven years his senior, came into play. This educated, cultured, courtly, and socially adept mature woman encountered the talented, passionate, impetuous, but also somewhat uncouth young Goethe.

A close relationship developed in which Charlotte made Goethe's behavior socially acceptable and, above all, adjusted his relationship between emotion and reason. Not quite as his following poem dedicated to her shows:

Why did you give us those deep insights? To look forebodingly at our future, Our love, our earthly happiness Never daring to hope for bliss? Why did you give us, fate, the feelings To see into each other's hearts, To get through all the unusual bustle To discern our true relationship? Ah, so many thousands of people, Drifting, barely knowing their own hearts, Floating aimlessly back and forth and running Hopelessly in unforseen pain; Re-cheering when an unexpected dawn Breaks on the quick joys. Only we, the two poor lovers Are denied mutual happiness, To love each other without understanding each other, To see in the other what he never was, Always setting out fresh on a dream of happiness And to waver even in the danger of dreams. Happy is he who is occupied by an empty dream! Happy is he whose foreboding is vain! Every moment and every glance confirms Dream and foreboding, alas, even more. Tell me, what does fate have in store for us? Tell me, how did it bind us so purely and precisely? Ah, you were in times long past My sister or my wife. You knew every trait of my character, You peered into the purest nerve, You could read me with a glance, Which mortal eyes can hardly penetrate. You dripped moderation into my hot blood, You steered my wild, errant course, And resting in your angelic arms The broken heart was restored; You held him bound with magical ease And beguiled him for many a day. What bliss was comparable to those hours of delight, When he lay gratefully at your feet, Feeling his heart swell against yours, He felt good in your eyes, All his senses brighten And calmed his rushing blood. And from all this, one memory remains Only around the uncertain heart, Feels the old truth eternally the same within, And the new state becomes painful to him. And we seem only half alive, The brightest day is dim around us. Happy that the fate that torments us Does not know how to change us.

Warum gabst du uns die tiefen Blicke, Unsre Zukunft ahndungsvoll zu schaun, Unsrer Liebe, unsrem Erdenglücke Wähnend selig nimmer hinzutraun? Warum gabst uns, Schicksal, die Gefühle, Uns einander in das Herz zu sehn, Um durch all die seltenen Gewühle Unser wahr Verhältnis auszuspähn? Ach, so viele tausend Menschen kennen, Dumpf sich treibend, kaum ihr eigen Herz, Schweben zwecklos hin und her und rennen Hoffnungslos in unversehnem Schmerz; Jauchzen wieder, wenn der schnellen Freuden Unerwart´te Morgenröte tagt. Nur uns armen liebevollen Beiden Ist das wechselseitge Glück versagt, Uns zu lieben, ohn uns zu verstehen, In dem andern sehn, was er nie war, Immer frisch auf Traumglück auszugehen Und zu schwanken auch in Traumgefahr. Glücklich, den ein leerer Traum beschäftigt! Glücklich, dem die Ahndung eitel wär! Jede Gegenwart und jeder Blick bekräftigt Traum und Ahndung leider uns noch mehr. Sag, was will das Schicksal uns bereiten? Sag, wie band es uns so rein genau? Ach, du warst in abgelebten Zeiten Meine Schwester oder meine Frau. Kanntest jeden Zug in meinem Wesen, Spähtest, wie die reinste Nerve klingt, Konntest mich mit einem Blicke lesen, Den so schwer ein sterblich Aug durchdringt. Tropftest Mäßigung dem heißen Blute, Richtetest den wilden irren Lauf, Und in deinen Engelsarmen ruhte Die zerstörte Brust sich wieder auf; Hieltest zauberleicht ihn angebunden Und vergaukeltest ihm manchen Tag. Welche Seligkeit glich jenen Wonnestunden, Da er dankbar dir zu Füßen lag, Fühlt´ sein Herz an deinem Herzen schwellen, Fühlte sich in deinem Auge gut, Alle seine Sinnen sich erhellen Und beruhigen sein brausend Blut. Und von allem dem schwebt ein Erinnern Nur noch um das ungewisse Herz, Fühlt die alte Wahrheit ewig gleich im Innern, Und der neue Zustand wird ihm Schmerz. Und wir scheinen uns nur halb beseelet, Dämmernd ist um uns der hellste Tag. Glücklich, dass das Schicksal, das uns quälet, Uns doch nicht verändern mag.

Goethe's revelation renders the typical male question, "Did he or didn't he?" void.

However, there are rumors that Goethe wanted to flee Weimar with Charlotte and live "without status or name" in the free world. Despite her deep love for him, Charlotte had to refuse for quite rational reasons. So Goethe is said to have fled alone in 1786 to the land of all Germans' dreams, Italy. After his sudden disappearance, Charlotte was left frustrated, feeling he had abandoned her forever.

In Rome, Faustina, "a merry widow," is said to have "enlightened" the no longer young man:

That is why Faustine makes me happy: She gladly shares her bed with me, And remains faithful to those who are faithful to her.

Darum macht Faustine mein Glück: Sie teilet das Lager gern mit mir, Und bewahrt Treue dem Treuen genau.

Later, Goethe sang of sensuality in his Roman Elegies:

And so I sit, loving and beloved, on the lap Of my beloved, with one arm around her neck, I beat time with my finger, and sing the little song She learned from me and really enjoyed it.

Und so sitz’ ich denn, liebend und geliebt, auf dem Schoße Der Geliebten, und ein Arm um den Nacken geschlungen, Geb’ ich den Takt mit dem Finger und singe dazu das Liedchen, Das sie gelernt von mir und das ihr so gefallen.

Although Goethe still struggled for Charlotte's love, dedicating his travel diary to her, he resigned himself to a "platonic love affair."

After his return to Weimar, Goethe continued to indulge his sensuality outside of marriage with Christiane Vulpius, his Bettschatz (bedmate), which not only upset Frau von Stein but also the entire Weimar court.

It took several years for the two platonic lovers to find their way back to each other, with Goethe saying that Frau von Stein's influence had "educated" and "refined" him. 

Secret Councilor Goethe, 76, as a porcelain figurine

Even at the age of 66, he still learned, loved, and suffered, as the following Christmas greeting to her proves.

That you were born on this day, together with the Holy Christ
And August* too, the noble, slender one,
For which I thank God in my heart,
This gives me, in the depths of winter, 
The most welcome opportunity
 To greet you with a little sugar,
To sweeten my absence,
Who, as always, far from the sun,
In silence, love, suffer, learn.

on 25. Dec.1815   Goethe
*August was Goethe's only son who turned 26 on December 25, 1815.

Kochberg village and castle

Back to Kochberg Castle, the memorial to an unfulfilled love.

 

Kochberg's walls exude the spirit of Goethe ...

... and Frau von Stein.

Schloss Kochberg. Pencil, pen, and ink drawing by Goethe, 1777/1779

Goethe frequently visited his love at her summer residence and tried his hand at drawing.

When he was absent, he would send her notes ...

... sometimes urgently via messengers, "To Frau von Stein at Kochburg with a basket of fruit."

Before I left the exhibition, I hopped into a canopy swing offered by the Kochberg Museum.

For lunch, Red Baron refreshed himself with a touch of GDR nostalgia, enjoying carrot and apple soup and an LPG* cake.

*Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft (Agricultural Production Cooperative)

After lunch, the vast Schloss Kochberg park welcomed our group.

A reminder that everything is temporary.

    

The bathing spot was suitable for feet.

In the early evening, a treat awaited us.

Goethe's comedy "Die Mitschuldigen" (The Accomplices) was performed at Kochberg Castle in the small amateur theater that Charlotte's son Friedrich had built.

Goethe wrote the play in 1769 during his time in Leipzig. The plot is finely woven with witty dialogue, reminiscent of Molière's comedies, such as Tartuffe, with their double standards and hypocrisy. Lessing's bourgeois Enlightenment themes also influenced the young Goethe when he wrote the play.

All members of the family are morally guilty, whether through fraud, blackmail, deception, or self-deception. By showing the spectator that everyone is complicit, Goethe uses theater for the audience's moral self-education.

Did he anticipate Schiller's maxim from 1784, "The theater is a moral institution"?

The long-lasting applause for the actors was well deserved.

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Rascal Voltaire

Following le plat de résistance at CERN, the participants of the Museumsgesellschaft's summer tour 2025 savored an excellent dessert by visiting the Château de Voltaire at Ferney the following day.

When entering the château, you find the entrance door framed by statues of the Vieux Patriarch and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Voltaire looks mockingly at the reading Rousseau.

Although both men were enlightened and shared some common ideals, such as critiques of the Church and traditional authorities, they had very different philosophies, temperaments, and views on society, which led to sharp personal and intellectual clashes.

Voltaire took on Rousseau after the publication of Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique: "One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours."

Rousseau, in turn, regarded Voltaire as insincere, elitist, corrupted by luxury and salon society, and accused him of orchestrating a conspiracy to ridicule him.

Despite their mutual dislike, both giants of the Enlightenment profoundly influenced the French Revolution and modern democratic thinking. Voltaire, being the liberal, reformist strand, and Rousseau, the radical, populist one.

Their disputes reflect the epoch's broad debates between reason and emotion, civilization and nature, and elite reform and popular revolution.

Here are some photos from the exhibition at the Château:

Voltaire et ses amis. The Patriarch enjoyed good company.

I recognized le Père Adam, l'Abbé Mauré, d'Alembert, and Diderot (For details, read here in German).

Henri IV accueillant Voltaire aux Champs-Élysées

The assassinated Henri IV receives Voltaire on the banks of the River Lethe. The Huguenot king stands here as a symbol of Voltaire's fight against l'Église.

Le Triomphe de Voltaire 1775

Also called The Apotheosis of Voltaire, led by Truth and crowned by Glory. In the center, Melpomene, muse of tragedy, leads Voltaire towards Apollo. On the right stands the Temple of Memory with its central niche vacant, flanked by Sophocles and Euripides on one side, with Corneille and Racine on the other.

Catherine the Great. The inscription reads: paint à dinant par
Pierre-Lyon-peintre-de Sa Majesté Limpératrice Reine J:R:A
 donné à M. de Voltaire, le 15 juillet 1770

Madame Denis's bedroom, Voltaire's mistress

In stepping out of the castle, Ferney's old village church catches the eye. Since it obstructed the view of his castle, Voltaire wanted to have it torn down. However, the local authorities would not allow him to do so.

The Patriarch had the building restored and erected a monumental façade bearing the inscription, "Deo erexit Voltaire MDCCLXI (Erected by Voltaire to God in 1761)." What a scandal, Voltaire's name was written with larger letters than God's.

A fake inscription: This is not Voltaire's tomb.

On the right side wall of the church, Voltaire had a half-pyramid installed, which is said to symbolize his troubled relation with the Church: "Half of me is in, half of me is out.

Voltaire was a hypochondriac all his life. As he grew older, his fear of dying and being buried in a mass grave grew. So he decreed that when he was dying, he should be taken to Geneva. After his death, he was to be transported back to Ferney. Thus, rascal Voltaire wanted to die a Calvinist but be buried a Catholic. 

However, things turned out differently. Following Voltaire's triumphal return to Paris at the beginning of February 1778, he died there on May 30. The Parisian clergy, as expected, opposed a church funeral. Only through deception was Voltaire's family able to bury his body in the Abbey of Scellières (Champagne).

During the French Revolution, Voltaire's remains were transferred to the Pantheon. His tomb lies opposite that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 

Finally pacified in death?

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