A “Steppenwolf” is a kind of wolfhound, half wild animal, half domesticated pet. In Hermann Hesse’s novel of the same name, protagonist Harry claims to be a specimen of this very variety, forever torn between a life outside society’s expectations and the comfort of hiding his lofty ideals in plain sight: among pubs, discussions about politics, and everything else mundane.
During a visit to an old friend’s house, Harry notices an embellished painting of Goethe, whom he adores, but whose stylized icon he despises. Later, Goethe visits him in a dream only to tease him about his snobby attitude, eventually fading into darkness with “a still and soundless laughter that shook him to the depths with abysmal old-man’s humor.”
Much later in the book, Harry realizes what his dream was really about. It wasn’t an old man laughing at a deeply broken and depressed individual. It was an immortal being pointing the way to inner peace. Here’s my translation attempt from the original German:
“It was without object, this laughter. It was only light, only brightness, was that which remains when a real human has passed through the suffering, the vices, the errors, desires, and misunderstandings of humans and made it to eternity, to space. And eternity was nothing more than the salvation of time, was in a way its return to innocence, its reconversion into space.”
I didn’t really understand Hesse’s words. I don’t think Harry did either. Or that, really, anyone ever will. But I also kind of did, because after witnessing Harry’s story for 200 pages, as for him, Hesse’s imagery gave me a deep sense of peace. “Ahhh, eternity. What a great comfort to know we are but a speck of time in an infinite space. Why get worked up about the petty issues of existence? Why not just laugh about them?” That’s what the passage seems to say.
If you’re reading this blog, chances are, you, too, are a Steppenwolf. There’s the you that goes to work and cleans the sink and pays the bills and does all the things. But there’s also something deep inside, and it keeps scratching, scratching at all the surface-level stuff we call “living,” desperate, hoping, yearning for something more.
I don’t know where that “more” is for you. I don’t know if any of us will ever find it. But I know people like Hermann Hesse, the kind of people who write the kind of books like Der Steppenwolf, they all felt it too, and so when I read those books, I don’t feel alone. I feel connected. Quiet. Seeking yet satisfied. My inner wolf isn’t howling—and perhaps that’s all the eternity a Steppenwolf will ever need.