may take place at a subconscious level, it becomes easier to understand why infatuations often seem to arise suddenly and out of nowhere.
For Johannes, Cordelia provides the occasion for aesthetic enjoyments of various kinds, and he recognizes immediately that she can be that occasion. For Cordelia, on the other hand, the infatuation which she gradually develops for Johannes is based on concrete beliefs about her life.
Therefore, seducing her requires that Johannes become very well acquainted with her psychology.
III. The Methods of the Seducer
actually not so much an event as the entire process narrated in the diary: for one thing because of the enormous effort involved in bringing an individual to the point of “absolute abandon” (335), and for another thing because Johannes enjoys the interactions all throughout, “in slow drafts”
(334).
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, this goal is best reached through “the interesting.” The interesting is not only what Johannes seeks, but also what is best suited to captivate Cordelia. In that sense, the two of them have, as is commonly looked for in romantic relationships, ‘something in common.’ However, Johannes uses the interesting for his own aesthetic satisfaction, to “rejuvenate” himself,29 whereas Cordelia expects the interesting to be a force to strengthen the bond between them. This dissonance of expectations would be present even with an ordinary seducer, but the aesthetic seducer produces, when successful, an even greater disproportionality. Since he is of the opinion that “mere possession is very little” (335), the additional psychological disappointment of the one seduced compounds the problem. Johannes says of his engagement to Cordelia: “I do not care at all to possess the girl in the external sense but wish to enjoy her artistically. Therefore the beginning must be as artistic as possible. The beginning must be as nebulous as possible; it must be an omnipossibility.” (372) Later in the entry, he adds: “It is precisely this infinite possibility that is the interesting.” (372) Possibility is thus closely linked to his central guiding principle, and is something that he values in his own life as well as finding it a useful means of manipulating Cordelia.
What Johannes wants for himself and what he wants for Cordelia are, to a great extent, in alignment.30 Just as he wants to live in infinity, Cordelia “must discover the infinite, must
experience that this is what lies closest to a person. This she must discover not along the path of
29 Johannes uses the word in reference to himself (435), and A likewise uses it in describing him (308).
30 For a discussion of the precise extent to which they align and where the alignment breaks down, see page 108.
thought, which for her is a wrong way, but in the imagination […]” (391). Johannes’s positive view of the infinite, which he associates with imagination, corresponds to his dismissive view of their opposites, the finite and actuality; he plans to “escape all this finite nonsense” (427) in regard to the social baggage surrounding broken engagements and cause Cordelia to “lose sight of marriage and the continent of actuality” (428). To term actuality a “continent” places it in contrast with the many water metaphors which Johannes uses to describe the conditions he aims to foster. Near the beginning, soon after sighting Cordelia, he muses at length on the way in which his inner state, under the influence of his budding infatuation, resembles a boat, concluding with the line: “How enjoyable to ripple along on moving water this way — how enjoyable to be in motion within oneself.” (326) A boat is typically used as a means of conveyance, for transporting a person from one point to another; but in this case, the emphasis on the rocking obscures any linear movement.
An increase in mental activity — in Johannes’s words, a mood — is also what pleases him about a chance observation of a fisherman’s daughter in the woods while he is sitting on a fence smoking a pipe; he describes the situation and the glance as “abundant in inner motion” (403), but once again, this motion is not going anywhere, but merely having a stimulant effect — volatizing his personality, as A says in the introduction (305).
Not just any girl will do for the type of seduction Johannes has in mind: “[…] it is dismaying that it is no art to seduce a girl but it is a stroke of good fortune to find one who is worth seducing.” (334f.) Johannes names “imagination, spirit, passion” as “the essentials” (343) with which Cordelia is endowed. Although A says, after presenting her letters, that she “did not possess the admired range of her Johannes” (313), she nevertheless has “a need for the unusual”
(360) that sets her apart from most people. Johannes is very complimentary of her, calling her
“sound” and “remarkable” (359) and noting that she readily perceives irony — “exactly what I want.” (353) These traits are signs of the latent potential in her personality; they enable him to
work her up to a higher pitch of passion than would be possible with a simpler mind: “The
majority enjoy a young girl as they enjoy a glass of champagne, at one effervescent moment — oh, yes, that is really beautiful, and with many a young girl that is undoubtedly the most one can attain, but here there is more. If an individual is too fragile to stand clarity and transparency, well, then one enjoys what is unclear, but apparently she can stand it.” (341f.) It is significant to the development of the relationship that Cordelia possesses these qualities, as well as that Johannes notices them. His claim that he has managed “to plot so entirely accurately the history of the development of a psyche” (359) is not only evidence of his own infatuation with her; it is a hint as to how he brings about her infatuation so effectively. Knowledge of her internal narratives will later allow him to say and do things that correspond to specific elements of her interiority, giving the impression that there is a secret connection between them. His realization that “the ideal hovering before her is certainly not a shepherdess or a heroine in a novel, a mistress, but a Joan of Arc or something like that” (344f.) lets him know what sort of images, myths, and metaphors will appeal to her — information which he later puts to use in his letters.