318 Part III: Emigration Years
not even repetitions; the new
follows unbroken, in an appar-
ently entirely [ganz] free way,
held together by similarity of
tone or colour, or, even more,
by contrast.thematic connections, develop-
ments, variations, and no repeti-
tions; unbroken, in an apparently
entirely [völlig] free way, the new
follows, held together by similar-
ity of tone or colour, or, almost
more, by contrast.Shortly before Leverkühn is dragged off by the Devil, he has time for
one last composition, the symphonic cantata ‘The Lament of Dr Faustus’.
Once again Mann appealed to Adorno to help him resolve the problems
posed by this difficult task. And in this instance, too, Adorno responded
with a detailed proposal^211 which Mann largely adopted.
When Doctor Faustus appeared in the USA in the summer of 1947 in
an edition published by Knopf, it found a large readership from the
start. The first edition of 25,000 copies was soon out of print, once the
work had been chosen the ‘November Book of the Month’ in August
and the response of the American critics had been overwhelmingly posit-
ive.^212 The impact of the German edition was longer in coming. An
analysis by the literary critic Hans Mayer led Adorno to write to Mann
the ironist on 6 July 1950, asking whether it was true that he had been
portrayed as one of the devil figures in chapter 25: ‘horn-rimmed
spectacles on his hooked nose.... pale and vaulted the brow, out of
which the hair retreats towards the top, yet from there to the sides,
thick, standing up black and woolly: a member of the intelligentsia,
writer on art, on music for the ordinary press, a theoretician and critic
who himself composes, as far as thinking allows him.’^213 Mann’s reply,
a few days later, was by no means free of the gentle ironic undertone
of which he was master. ‘And the idea that the Devil in his role as a
music scholar was modelled on your appearance is quite absurd. Do
you in fact ever wear horn-rimmed spectacles?’^214 Thomas Mann was
probably astonished and delighted that of all people the philosopher of
music had failed to solve the riddle. For the Devil, who is transformed
in the course of the chapter from pimp and professor of theology to
music scholar, resembled not Adorno but Gustav Mahler. He had given
him horn-rimmed spectacles only ‘to disguise him’, ‘an intentionally
misleading model that functioned effectively for decades and prevented
commentators from noticing that Adorno might have stood out for all
sorts of possible reasons, but not for his magnificent bushy hair.’^215
Taking all these things together – the conversations, the drafts, the
oral and written suggestions for improvements – Adorno might well
be thought of ‘as co-author.... Our ordinary sense of justice would
have deemed it right to award him some financial remuneration if it
had occurred to him to demand it. However, Adorno thought of it as a
great challenge to be allowed to collaborate on Faustus, rather than as
a paid service.’^216 In August 1957 Adorno found himself in the position