Labudes Habilitationsschrift über Lessing

Labudes Habilitationsschrift über Lessing is Stephan Labude’s five-year scholarly work and, after his death, the object around which a damaging falsehood is exposed. Weckherlin’s claim that it was rejected as wholly inadequate is contradicted by the literary historian’s stated praise and recommendation; the manuscript becomes evidence not only of Labude’s intellectual achievement but of the deception that helped make him believe he had been condemned by every institution and person he valued.

The Work and the Report of Rejection

In the letter Fabian reads beside his dead friend, Labude recounts visiting the institute to inquire about the progress of his work. The literary historian was absent, but his assistant Weckherlin was there. According to Weckherlin, the work had been rejected as completely inadequate, and the scholar had said that sending it to the faculty would be a nuisance and that there was no reason to make Labude’s humiliation public. Labude describes the five years he spent on the manuscript as five years spent working on a disgrace that would be buried within a small circle out of mercy.

The report strikes at Labude beyond the practical outcome of an academic assessment. In the letter, he calls the rejection his ruin, especially psychologically: Leda has rejected him, the university has rejected him, and he feels he has received an inadequate grade from every direction. His account makes the manuscript the point where professional judgment and personal rejection converge. He says that historical examples of eminent men who were poor students or unhappy lovers cannot comfort him; in his view, the work’s supposed failure confirms a broader verdict on his worth.

The Manuscript as Evidence

After reading the letter, Fabian conceals its contents from Justizrat Labude. He initially summarizes the news as a brief report that the literary historian had rejected Stephan’s work. When the father asks whether it was really so poor, Fabian answers that it is one of the best and most original works of literary history he knows. He takes a copy of the manuscript from the bookshelf and puts it on the desk, making the work itself present in the room rather than allowing Weckherlin’s account to stand as the only available judgment.

Justizrat Labude turns through the copy and calls the literary historian by telephone, despite the late hour. He learns that the scholar is away in Weimar for a meeting of the Shakespeare Society and intends to visit him at the institute the following day. The telephone inquiry also exposes a contradiction: the literary historian had recently spoken at dinner of the work as extraordinarily interesting and said he was eager to learn its conclusion. The scholar’s praise makes Weckherlin’s report difficult to reconcile with what the father has heard directly.

Praise, Publication, and the Lie Exposed

The contradiction is resolved when the literary historian arrives at the institute. On hearing that he supposedly rejected the work, he is appalled and emphatically denies it. He says he had circulated the manuscript to the faculty with a recommendation describing it as the most mature work of literary history in recent years. His account further states that he had written that Stephan Labude’s work deserved the keenest interest of specialists, made an invaluable contribution to modern research, and was of a quality he had never before encountered among his pupils. He had also arranged for it to appear as a separate publication in the scholarly series.

The manuscript’s status is therefore the opposite of the secret verdict Labude had been given: rather than being refused circulation and quietly buried, it had been praised, sent to the faculty, and slated for publication. The literary historian’s detailed account establishes that the reported rejection was false. Its consequences are sharpened by timing: Labude is already dead when the truth emerges, so the genuine assessment can correct the record but cannot reach him or undo the despair he describes in his letter.

Family Grief and the Work’s Afterlife

Justizrat Labude says he read his son’s work during the night. Although he does not claim expertise in its field and cannot judge whether the foundations of the inquiry are sound, he recognizes the conclusions as intelligent and penetrating. Fabian goes further, insisting that the foundations are also sound and calling the work a masterpiece. The two men’s assessments distinguish the father’s limited disciplinary confidence from his recognition of the manuscript’s intellectual force, while Fabian provides the informed confirmation the family needs.

Frau Labude resists the attempt to replace the cause her son believed in with a new account after his death. She asks why they would take away the reason for which he died and urges the men to leave him in peace. When the literary historian’s denial makes the lie unmistakable, she says that they are killing Stephan a second time. Her response registers the cruelty of belated vindication: the evidence can restore the work’s reputation, but the reversal also threatens the explanation the bereaved have been left to confront.

The manuscript remains at the center of the aftermath as both a scholarly object and the material trace of a life’s labor. Its five years of work are present in the copy Fabian places before the father, the pages the father reads through, and the praise the literary historian recounts. The gap between that documented esteem and the false report Labude received gives the work its tragic significance: the academic judgment was favorable, but the lie reached him as rejection, and the truth arrived only after he could no longer know it.