Walter Calé and Soseki

: Resonance of Solitary Souls A Source Study of the German Phrase in Soseki's Kojin

Abstract

　Kojin (The Wayfarer) is the second novel of Natsume Soseki's late trilogy. Like the other two, Higansugimade (To the Spring Equinox and Beyond) and Kokoro, the work consists of short stories with varying points of view. It appeared serially in the Asahi from 6 December 1912 to 15 November 1913. However, the recurrence of the author's gastric ulcer caused an interval of almost half a year, resulting in an apparent cleavage between the first three parts, namely “Tomodachi" (Friend), “Ani" (Brother) and “Kaettekara" (Return and After), and the fourth and last part “Jinrou" (Anguish). The first three parts depict the domestic tragedy of Ichiro, the protagonist, and his wife Nao, mainly through the eyes of his younger brother Jiro, whereas the last part reveals Ichiro's metaphysical anguish and existential dread by way of the report of his friend and colleague called H.

　This is most clearly seen in two German phrases in Jinrou 36: “Keine Brücke führt von Mensch zu Mensch" (There is no bridge leading from one man to another) and “Einsamkeit, du meine Heimat Einsamkeit!" (Loneliness, loneliness, thou mine home.) While the latter is known to be a quotation from Niezche's Zarathustra, the source of the former, though cited as a ‘German proverb', has not been identified so far. But the present writer has found that the phrase was rather familiar to intellectuals in Germany around 1910s-20s, and examples, including those of a variant, can be seen in influential books of various genres, e.g. Richard Vob's Zwei Menschen (1911), Max Frischeisen-Köhler's Wissenschaft und Wirklichkeit (1912), Fritz Kahn's Die Juden als Rasse und Kulturvolk (1920) and Franz Rosenzweig's Der Stern der Erlösung (1921). Furthermore, close reading and comparative study of them indicates that their origin can be traced back to a poem, the last line of which reads, “und keine Brücke ist von Mensch zu Mensch." The poem appeared in Nachgelassene Schriften (Posthumous Works) by Walter Calé in 1907; the author had taken his own life at the young age of 22 in 1904.

　This paper tries to specify this poem as the original, if not immediate, source of the ‘German proverb' in Kojin, and to examine how and why the phrase spread in Germany and came into Soseki's eyes, suggesting the synchonicity of sentiment which prevailed both in Germany and in Japan.