XXXIV (continued)
The chapter that follows upon chapter XXXIV in Zeitblom’s narrative is not labeled “XXXV,” but rather “XXXIV (continued).” The unusual numbering highlights not only the centrality of this chapter to the themes developed in DF, but also draws attention to the number “thirty-four,” which happens to be the sum of all verticals, horizontals, and main diagonals in a magic square like the one discussed in chapter XII.
While L. is working on the Apocalipsis in his Pfeiffering study, Z. is a repeat visitor to the “intimate round-table sessions” (382/526) hosted by the art historian Sixtus Kridwiss in Munich. There, he gets to know a variety of arch-reactionary intellectuals who are all thinly-veiled portraits of real people of the time.
Time of composition: As above. Time of narration: In or after July 1944. Narrated time: 1919.
| | This is the first indication we get that any of L.’s works may have achieved renown beyond a very narrow circle of initiates. The statement needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since we learn on 396/547 that the Apocalipsis was publicly performed only once, although a printed edition is also available (410/564). |
| intimate round-table sessions | Emil Preetorius (1883–1973), the model for Kridwiss, hosted discussion evenings like the ones descried here in his Munich apartment. |
| “I entrust to you the plundering—of the world!” | An actual line from a poem by Ludwig Derleth (1870–1948), the model for Daniel Zur Höhe, who also wrote a volume of poems called Proclamations. |
| our democratic republic […] a bad joke | TM’s description of the Kridwiss Circle accurately reproduces the prevailing opinions in the conservative milieu in which TM himself moved during the years following the First World War. TM pledged his support to the Weimar democracy only in 1922, when he gave a public lecture “On the German Republic” that earned him the enmity of many of his former friends and associates. |
| freedom was a self-contradictory notion | Note the parallels to L.’s aesthetic theories, articulated most extensively in XXII. |
| a dialectical process that eventually turned freedom into […] dictatorship | A dialectical approach to history in which “freedom” eventually turns into “order” (if not quite “dictatorship”) also underlies Kretzschmar’s lecture on Op. 111 in VIII. |
| Réflexions sur la violence | Reflections on Violence (1908) by the French syndicalist philosopher Georges Sorel (1847–1922), who was a major influence on reactionary intellectual circles in interwar Europe. |
| henceforth popular myths […] would be the vehicle of political action | The realization that “fables, chimeras, phantasms that needed to have nothing whatever to do with truth, reason, or science” are oftentimes better motivators for political action than facts is central to the political thought not only of Sorel, but also of TM himself—who however sought to distance himself from the Frenchman by pointing out that whereas Sorel had pointed the way towards fascism, his own journey had ultimately been towards democracy. |
| they shared the fun of imagining a court of law | TM was a keen observer of Weimar jurisprudence and wrote several essays in which he decried the increasing sway that sloganeering and populist myths held over the court system during the final years of the republic. |
| It was far better for me to observe […] instead of presenting […] opposition | Whether this statement indeed holds true is one of the key questions in assessing Z.’s role in the novel. |
| My symbol of musical criticism, the “dead tooth” | |