53-54 An Unbridled Excess of Fantasy

After a brief glimpse into Moosbruger's thoughts as he is transferred to a new prison--"No one loves life who really knows it."--we settle into a three-way conversation between Clarisse, Walter and Ulrich.

Clarrisse begins by telling Ulrich that "Something must be done for Moosbrugger; this murderer is musical" even though she can't explain what she means. The conversation quickly shifts to a discussion of Arnheim and Ulrich's dislike of him:

"I'll tell you what I hold against him," Ulrich persisted. "Scientific man is an entirely inescapable thing these days; we can't not want to know! And at no time has the difference between the expert's experience and that of the layman been as great as it is now. . .  The experts never finish anything. Not only are they not finished today, but they are incapable of conceiving an end to their activities. . . . Can you imagine that man will still have a soul, for instance, once he has learned to understand it and control it biologically and psychologically? Yet this is precisely the condition we are aiming for!"

It curious to hear Ulrich, the man without qualities, talk about the soul as if he humanly cared about it.  When Walter accuses Ulrich of refusing "to be a human being," Ulrich declares: "There's no long a whole man confronting a whole world, only a human something moving about in a general culture-medium."

Then it's Walter's turn to present his perspective:

"You're right when you say there's nothing serious, rational, or even intelligible left; . . . Everyone's brain is seized with this craving to become more and more rational, to rationalize and compartmentalize life more than ever, but unable to imagine what's to become of us when we know everything and have it all analyzed, classified, mechanized, standardized.  It can't go on like this." . . . "I have the feeling there will be a reaction of unbridled excess of fantasy."

The narrator steps in and says there "was a hint of cowardice and cunning" in Walter's remark. And when he made them he "was thinking of Clarisse's mysterious irrationality, and as he spoke of reason threatening to drive the irrational to excess he was thinking of Ulrich."

The chapter ends as the men suddenly stop arguing and watch Clarisse "in silence."  She looks back at the two men "amiably" and the narrator declares that they are "like exhibits in a glass cage."