a destiny that is metaphysical and spiritual, and that can bennothing else.nEliot is not often performed in France these days. Butnthere is no one who doesn’t remember the wonderful handsnof Jean Vilar joined in prayer in the inihal performances ofnMurder in the Cathedral at the Vieux Colombier, rightnafter the Second World War.nThis spirituality, indeed, through the use of other meansn—less forcefully, perhaps—is what I have tried in turn tonexpress: the essential, keen, fundamental need for religionnand a metaphysical perspective, without which man is but anridiculous puppet. With the difference that I have portrayednthese values through contrast, negation, absence. If I havenshown men to be ridiculous, ludicrous, it was in no way outnof any desire for comic effect, but rather, difficult as this isnduring these times of uniersal spiritual decav, to proclaimnthe truth.nIt is still possible, at least, to show what man becomes, ornwhat he may become, when he is cut off from all transcendence,nwhen the notion of metaphysical deshny is lacking innSIMPLE GOETHE bv Thomas MolnarnLast summer, I read simultaneously Goethe’s Dichtungnund Wahrheit, his autobiography up to the time ofnwriting Werther, his collected travel diaries, and his life bynEmil Ludwig. Of the three biographical works, my unhesitatingnjudgment is that Ludwig’s book is the disappointment:nit compares to Goethe’s own narrative of his youth asnthe description of a garden compares with the actualnfragrance and colors. Although Ludwig was an excellentnbiographer of Napoleon and Bismarck, the poet Goethenseems to have been too much for his powers. He keepsnexclaiming, “What a genius!” or “This friend, that mistressnfelt at his contact that they were dealing with a genius!”nDistracted, we read on, and remain unconvinced—bynLudwig. We read Goethe himself—and we know.nBut it is not this much-abused word that matters. It is thenje ne sais quoi of Goethe’s work, although, mind you,nDichtung und Wahrheit was written some 40 years after theneents he recollects, from notebooks, copies of letters, butnmostly from reminiscing. Yet the diary is superbly alive.nWhat is in Goethe that all modern writers lack? Theynlack it, by the way, not because of some personal deficiency,nbut because the past 200 years have emptied us of thendirect experience of things—of colors, tastes, smells, rocks,ntrees, of slow-moving time, space not seen through a car ornplane window, of real objects instead of plastic, of real lifeninstead of life-on-TV or the subway car—and given us onlynabstractions instead. Thus the first and greatest differencenbetween Goethe and contemporary writers is that Goethenused all his senses, and poetry for him was the mastery overnactual experience. How far from him the erudite andnrecondite verses of Mallarme or Eliot who chiseled words tonThomas Molnar is on the faculty at the City University ofnNew York and is a visiting professor of religious studies atnYale University.n261 CHRONICLES OF CULTUREnnnthe human heart. That is, when “realistic” realitv isnsubstituted for the Real, the eternal. It is the sacred that isnwhat is real, as my friend Mircea Eliade has so well put it.nThe so-called real whisked away by realism—for realism isnnot real—is only a convention, an academic posture, a lowntruth. The truth is quite the contrary: the real is not just anmovement, a simple ideology that will pass. It is what isnincorruptible.nThat is the path I have chosen. I have tried to portray thenabyss that is the absence of faith, the absence of a spiritualnlife. If I have consequently at times been comic, it was withnthe intention to teach. The comic is only the other side ofnthe tragic; absence is only a form of the call or the presencenof Him who waits behind the door for someone to open itnfor Him.nBut perhaps He, Himself, will open it, and Himselfnappear, in His splendor. His beauty. His power. His glory.nI should have liked to present myself more effectiely,nmore amply. Another time, perhaps. I hope so. ccnperfection and weighed them down with layers of meaning!nGoethe walked through the Harz Mountains or Italy, satndown when tired, and wrote what he saw and felt.nYears ago, I visited Goethe’s family house in Frankfurt. Itnis a museum of Goetheana, well-kept, airy, spacious. NownI read the obvious, namely that he rode out on horsebacknoften, visiting his beloved. So the house in Frankfurt mustn. have had a stable, and stable smells of horses and manure.nThis in itself sets Goethe off from the modern world and thenmeticulous museum. Can you imagine Valery or Audennriding a horse and taking their poem’s rhythm from thengalloping animal?nGoethe’s poetry and prose breathe this contact withnthings. Then there was the second thing that was real fornGoethe, lost for us. Chateaubriand, 20 years his junior,nwho also lived on that side of the threshold of modernity,nnotes in his Memoires that future generations will lienvicariously: they will experience things less than they willnread or hear about them. Life once removed from the real.nAnd Chateaubriand did not dream that it was going tonbe twice removed: in front of the TV screen, throughnnewspapers, through Great Books Programs. Ungenuinenthroughout.nAn episode oiDichtung und Wahrheit illustrates frighteninglynwell what the French confrere meant. Goethe is 24nyears old and is everywhere acclaimed as the author ofnSufferings of the Young Werther. (Napoleon was to readnWerther seven times.) Letters to Goethe arrive in largennumbers; young men strike the Wertherian pose and wearnhis blue waistcoat. Some even commit suicide, imitatingnthe young melancholy hero. One letter strikes the authornwith its disagreeable insistence to meet him. The poet doesnnot answer, but some months later a second, complainingnnote arrives with the same insistence: offer of friendship,nexchange of souls, impatience. Goethe remains silent. Hen