MILAN KUNDERA
725
it not be just the opposite? But, then, whom do we obey if God is
dead?
When the world changes, the way in which the novel questions
the world changes. Proust (like Joyce) bequeathed to us the incom–
parable discovery of our infinite interiority as individuals: the
universe of our memory. But Esch and Hugueneau (the two main
characters in
The Sleepwalkers)
appear on the novel's stage at about
thirty years of age- and nothing is revealed to us about the "uni–
verse" of their memories, that is, their former lives. In the same way,
we know nothing about the lives of K. or Schweik.
"To the devil with psychology," Kafka would write. And
Broch's motto would be "Gnoseological novel instead of psychologi–
cal novel." This change of orientation does not mean that psychology
has no place or interest in the novel, but simply that it has ceased to
be the
primordial
question the novel asks the world.
The great central European novelists ask themselves what
man's possibilities are in a world that has become a trap. What possi–
bilities does man have- Kafka , more concretely, asks- in a bureau–
cratized world where there is no more private life and where we find
ourselves spied upon even while we make love? And Broch: "What
possibilities does man have in a history that step by step leads further
and further into decline?"
Broch calls that ladder into decline "the degradation of values,"
and he studies three of its steps in the successive volumes of his
trilogy . The first step (set in 1888) bears the name "Romanticism,"
the second (1903) is "Anarchy," and the third (1918) is "Realism"
(die
Sachlichkeit,
an untranslatable term, vaguely reminiscent of "objec–
tivity"). Pasenow is the protagonist of what Broch calls "Roman–
ticism ." A conservative , he clings desperately to the superceded or
discredited- although still intelligible- values of discipline, honor,
the family, and the fatherland. Esch is the protagonist of"Anarchy."
He desires that there be values, but he can no longer distinguish
them. Values, like people at a masked ball, are disguised. Never–
theless, he seeks them out, always deceived, fooled by their false
faces. The last protagonist, Hugueneau, has adapted to the absence
of values and no longer requires any.
Pasenow, Esch, and Hugueneau represent the three possibili–
ties of man entrapped by the ladder of decline. The one that fasci–
nates me most is Esch. The world of values, even if it has faded away,
marked him with an indelible image: the
archetype of value,
an empty
form that furiously, impatiently searches for its lost content. Esch
