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Two Ages

The Age of Revolution and the Present Age a Literary Review

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Survey of the Contents of Both Parts

Part I: The Age of Revolution. The arrival of the French legation in the city and the fact that these envoys along with other Frenchmen were received in the family were epoch-making in the home of Waller, a Copenhagen merchant. Waller is a republican; his brother, Councilor of Justice Waller, "whom the difficulties of the times have made untimely difficult," is a royalist; his son Ferdinand W. is a republican. Dalund, a supreme court lawyer and daily guest in the house, finds it impossible to maintain his neutral position as an observer of the world-historical events, because each of the hot-tempered parties in the dispute emotionally misinterprets the other's statements and makes him an advocate for his own party-line. But while the big events are receiving all the attention and while the Waller house is the frequent scene of political disputes, all this conceals a secret intrigue between Madame W. and the lawyer, Dalund. What leafy arbors and rural quiet are for innocent romantic love, or at least the pardonable falling into illusory love, the diverting of attention of big events is for the continuation of forbidden love.

Finally, there is one more visitor in the Waller home, a young girl, Claudine, a daughter of the merchant's sister. And among the Frenchmen there is one, Charles Lusard, in whom the young girl, almost oppressively brought up by her aunt Malfred, soon finds an object for her now liberated admiration. A banquet given by the Wallers provides the culmination for the celebration of politics in the Waller home and the beginning of a portentous understanding between Claudine and Lusard.

Although Part I of the novel is called "The Age of Revolution," attention concentrates on Claudine so that the main motif seems to be forgotten if it is not remembered that in fact C. falls victim to the idea of her age (p. 79) but is also set on her feet again as the one who remained true to the idea (p. 159) in the face of everything. Thus the interesting and yet modestly chosen task comes to light, the task of "reflecting in domestic life the life of the age of revolution" (see preface), yes, the age of revolution reflected in a poor abandoned woman's secret seclusion out in the country.

Lusard fights a duel; he is wounded and brought in a fishing boat to the Waller country house, where Claudine has experienced and continues to experience all the painful tensions and terrors of a secret love affair but also grows more mature in the inwardness of the singular infatuation. L. remains at the Waller country house, where he recovers, but also where in rural quiet the understanding between him and Claudine reaches its climax, aided and abetted by the situation and guided, as it were, by Ferdinand Waller's report of an illicit relation between Madame W. and Dalund, as well as by his promoting the age's loose views of marriage.

Lusard goes off to the army and leaves Claudine behind with the task prophetically foretold by Ferdinand: "that the memory of this should be enough to fill the life of a woman who knew how to love and to appreciate what is glorious" (p. 20), a prophecy which is so sweeping that it can become false and becomes true only in exceptional cases.

Already isolated by her solitary knowledge of her relation to Lusard, Claudine becomes more and more isolated. Ferdinand W. saddens and worries his father when he writes a small book of poems (Primula veris) containing revolutionary ideas and then goes abroad. Waller, accompanied by his wife, goes to Amsterdam on business. The enterprise is successful, but a personal ordeal delays the merchant's return journey. Claudine's predicament becomes more and more desperate. In her misery she has no one in whom to confide and finally decides to write to Madame Waller and reveal everything to her. The letter is sent off but happens to arrive too late, for a report now comes that Madame W. is dead. In his grief Dalund decides to go abroad; he informs Claudine of it in a note and hints desperately of suicide. Driven to extremity, Claudine in despair resolves to end her life. She is rescued by the old housekeeper Susanne, who helps her find sanctuary with an old sailor's widow. Without any other resource in the world, Claudine now belongs wholly to her baby with such a quiet dedication and genuine motherliness that "the mother in her faithfulness atones for the irresponsible mistake of the maiden" (p. 99), and the fervor of her devotion cannot fail to acquire retroactive power, so to speak, to reinterpret conjugally the moral lapse.

Having duly received Claudine's letter to his deceased wife, opened it, and learned everything, Waller orders Claudine to leave his house. An offer of marriage from Germany negotiated by the aunt is declined. Under the pretense of traveling to Germany, she leaves the city alone with her baby and goes to the country to her new hiding place, where she lives in obscurity under the name Madame Johansen, forgetting the world and forgotten. Although some information about Lusard does reach Waller, she never hears anything because of a combination of deception and accidental circumstances.

Committed in faithfulness to herself and her child to remembering Lusard, whether dead or faithless, Claudine lives nine years in idyllically protected recollection, disturbed and embarrassed only whenever she is obliged to explain how it really happened that she became a widow at so young an age, whether it is a simple farm woman who asks in all innocence, or a baron out of erotic interest, or little Charles in childish naïveté. A baron, whose former wantonness succumbs to the power of love, proposes to her and opens up to her the prospect of a splendid future, which also can conceal a moral lapse. He alarms her with his passionateness, but is refused; although dishonored, Claudine chooses to remain "faithful to her husband and to her honor."

Claudine is recognized by an outsider who is visiting the baron and is also recognized by someone she wants to see, Ferdinand W., who in the meantime has married and is a partner in a big company in Switzerland and upon coming back has learned of her whereabouts from Susanne. He brings the news that Lusard is living in Jutland as Duke de Montalbert on an estate he inherited from his uncle, a zealous royalist, with whom he had in the past vainly sought to be reconciled on Claudine's behalf. Ferdinand W. in turn brings news to Lusard, who believes Claudine is faithless and is married and living in Germany. F. communicates his news as sensitively as possible so that the reunion might not be a poor, reluctant acquiescence but an enthusiastic repetition, so that it may not turn out as stated in the French song about spring, "qui ne rev lent plus pour les amans, comme il revient pour la nature" ["which does return again for the lovers as it returns for nature"].

CLAUDINE AND LUSARD ARE REUNITED

Part II: The Present Age. Just as Claudine's faithful constancy was the triumphant path of faithfulness to the ultimate reunion with Lusard, so this faithfulness is repeated in a constancy of recollection that wistfully and with refinement goes back to the union to which Claudine was looking forward. The son, Charles Lusard de Montalbert, now fifty years old, lives in the splendid old castle ("where the two great chestnut trees near the church wall have strewn their blossoms over the grave for ten years now")—itself a remembrance of those who are dead. After much traveling, in the new world as well as in the old, after having let the time of love pass by, after having turned aside at the point where the future essentially begins for a man, he has beautifully established himself in recollection and chosen the past, desiring only to create a memory for himself by making one member of his family happy.

Lusard arrives in Copenhagen, visits Waller, a commercial councilor, who lives in the old Waller house, and we are introduced through him to the councilor's marital troubles, and to that stage where the present age reveals itself in its various representatives. The present age has no charming foreigners, no legation of Frenchmen who almost make one forget that the scene is Copenhagen, and no tremendous upsurge of world-historical catastrophes. Life in the present age is not disturbed by that energetic passion that has its form in its very energy, yes, even in its violence, does not conceal the strength of a secret forbidden passion. On the contrary, everything is manifestly nondescript, thus trivial, formless, superficial, obsequious, and openly so. Here there is no great revelation and no deep dark secret, but all the more superficiality.

Only one flower grows in concealment, stunted by all these externalities: Miss Mariane, a daughter of councilor Waller's first marriage, left out in the cold in the second marriage and called Maren even by the servants. Insulted and ignored by the stepmother, feebly and futilely protected by the father, rudely treated by the young dandies whom the stepmother flirts with and flatters, worried by her younger sister's finishing-school irresponsibility, she secretly loves and is loved by Ferdinand Bergland, grandson of Ferdinand Waller (author of Primula veris), who is something of an eccentric, yet a proud and noble spirit.

Lusard soon discovers this girl's lovable character and is confirmed in his judgment by the old Dalund, councilor of state, who now visits councilor Waller's house as he once did the merchant Waller's house, who cannot be said to have chosen recollection but preserves it, the recollection of Madame Waller. Now a venerable old man, just as he once vainly tried to remain a neutral observer, he now vainly takes up the cudgels with his mild yet somewhat sarcastic views as "attorney for a vanished age—or against the present age."

Ferdinand Bergland is not to be found; after a misunderstanding and falling out with councilor Waller he left, presumably for Geneva. Mariane now becomes the provisional object of Lusard's attention (misinterpreted by some as if he himself were the wooer); her lover has been designated as Lusard's heir. Lusard is dejected to discover, as he thinks, that Mariane is in love with Arnold, a law student, whose emptiness nauseates Lusard, but Dalund denies that it is possible.

Lusard accidentally overhears a conversation between Mariane and her lover (Ferdinand Bergland, who has come home to say goodbye); Lusard cannot see him since he is in the arbor and hidden by the trees, but his attention is drawn to his voice and his signet ring. Lusard learns from the conversation that the love affair is about to break up, because the lover, out of fear of financial difficulties, does not want to risk marriage but is going to give her up, hoping that Lusard will propose to her.

But who is this man? At a book auction Lusard had bought the little volume of verse, Primula veris, for twenty-five dollars, and his curiosity was awakened to find out who was the second bidder at this excessive price. From the arbor he now recognizes the lover by his voice and signet ring—it is none other than Ferdinand Bergland, the one being sought.

Just then as a separation similar to that in Part I is about to take place, in which a faithful woman (like Claudine) is about to be abandoned by her lover who does not wish to go to war (like Lusard) but hopelessly does not dare risk marriage out of fear of financial difficulties, just as the horoscope might indeed be cast in such a manner that Mariane, like Claudine, would remain faithful to herself over the years, but less zealously and secretly suffering more—Lusard steps forth, and once again the recollection of Part I has a transfiguring effect. What filial piety recollects in sadness, the noble spirit now sees before him in renewed repetition.

Mariane is united with F. Bergland; they live in the old castle: the children and the heirs of the solitary Lusard.

(1) The lights are lit in the arbor, while the star of love sparkles in the twilight. Claudine sits with Lusard, and Ferdinand Waller reads aloud a poem from Primula veris. (2) The lights are lit in the arbor—Ferdinand W. sits with little Madame Johansen and is reminded of what was never forgotten. (3) The lamps are lit in the arbor, and the stars sparkle and twinkle through the leaves. Ferdinand Bergland reads aloud to his wife, and Lusard listens—he is reading from Primula veris.

Why is autumn the most beautiful time to fall in love, why should "September be called the love-month?" (see Part I, p. 55). Because it is immediately in tune with recollection! Ferdinand has finished reading, has aroused recollection of memories that linked him personally to that little book and the age whose ideas influenced it. The two ages touch each other once again at the end. Ferdinand B. says: "I am happy to live in an age that despite its deficiencies makes such great advances in so many directions. I subscribe to the faith that the human race, no doubt through many ups and downs, nevertheless will steadfastly approach the goal of perfection conceivable for an earthly existence." And Lusard says: "Amen, yes, we will hope for that."

The reflexion in domestic life of the age of revolution is recalled, the reflexion of the present age in domestic life is depicted but not judged, and therefore hope is not denied, either.

An Esthetic Interpretation of the Novel and Its Details

In my résumé of the contents I have tried to emphasize the salient elements in the development of the story, also to lace the account with the essential mood of the novel, and by the inclusion of particular statements to suggest what is being dealt with in the conversations between various characters; finally, in conformity with the story, I have continually tried to provide a background by way of the totality of the age. In fact, what distinguishes this novel from others is that it has a more substantial basis: each part has its age with its specific distinctiveness. As a rule, a novel has only the pictorial background, similar to the outline an illustrator sketches over when he draws the figure; the drawing itself is the product, while the outlined background merely keeps what is sketched from seeming to be suspended in the air. But here the novel is more universally grounded in something that is more essential even than the production itself, although the production intends only to provide the afterglow. The novel has as its premise the distinctive totality of the age, and the production is the reflexion of this in domestic life; the mind turns from the production back again to the totality of the age that has been so clearly revealed in this reflexion. But (according to the preface) the author did not intend to describe the age itself; his novel lies somewhere between the presupposed distinctive character of the age and the age in reflexion as illustrated by this work.

The principle for the esthetic critique, therefore, will not be whether or not a girl like Claudine, a man like Lusard, like Dalund, etc. can appear in our age. How unreasonable! The most extreme variant can appear in any and every age; for example, a man who could be said to belong essentially in the Middle Ages or in Greece could be living in our age. No, the critic's question is: may a girl like Claudine appear as typical in this particular age. —The same holds for Part o. The question is not whether a girl like Mariane could have lived in the age of revolution, thinking, feeling, and acting as she does, but may such a feminine figure appear as typical in the present age.

From an esthetic point of view, it is particularly in Part n that the author develops his mastery in exposition and description, his powers of observation, his balanced and dignified faithful reproduction of actuality, knowing how to keep even the worst of human foibles and trivialities in such perspective that it remains what it is, triviality and coarseness itself, knows how to invest it with such authenticity that it becomes interesting precisely for that reason. Even the most subordinate character in Part II, where generally speaking there is no important character, comes alive to the reader, becomes so transparent in a few lines that by their very realism and vividness each character and the entire cast produce a striking effect. Only this author's sense of proportion, his interest in actual human beings in the context of sympathy and a life-view, explains the fact that he has been able to present all these characters in such a way that one never really finds them laughable, even though most of them inevitably become comic under exposure to the light of the purely esthetic idea, and exposed to the light of the purely ethical idea, they inevitably would have to be scrapped, if I dare say so, as counterfeit editions of human beings.

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Excerpted from Two Ages by Søren Kierkegaard, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong. Copyright © 1978 Howard V. Hong. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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