Thursday, January 31, 2019

STEPPENWOLF 1974

Price of Admission is Your Mind

I read Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf when I was 15-years-old. The year was 1972 and my family had moved across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Berkeley; a college town still so enmeshed in hippie-era philosophical exploration and the quest for spiritual enlightenment that Steppenwolf and Hesse’s Siddhartha were practically required-by-law reading in order to cross the border. Self-reflection of the sort encouraged by these novels was a big part of the appropriately-labeled “Me Decade,” novelist Tom Wolfe's name for the era of mass navel-gazing and spiritual introspection that coincided with my adolescence. 

For emotionally untethered teens such as I, adrift in a sea of inner conflicts and uncertain certainties (when our limited experience of the world tricks us into believing the truth of our feelings is truth itself), J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye was held up as the go-to novel of adolescent angst. Several of my classmates found something they could connect with in Holden Caulfield’s privileged-class bellyaching, but I came away with a strong dislike for the novel, finding nothing in it remotely relatable to me or my experience.
As was my custom in those days, I went to the local library to check out books I knew were adapted into films I was too young to see. In 1972 Siddhartha was made into a film whose provocative poster, R-rating, and arthouse cachet had captured my imagination. So, not knowing anything of the novel beforehand, I read the book and found the exotic chronicle of the trials and travails of its spiritually-disenchanted hero, if not exactly relatable, most certainly flattering to my Catholic School image of myself. My unexpected enthusiasm for Siddhartha led me to read Steppenwolf not long thereafter. And what a mind-blower that one turned out to be! At age 15, I won’t say I actually saw myself AS Harry Haller, the misanthropic and melancholy 49-year-old man/wolf protagonist of Hesse’s Jungian rumination on the dual nature of man...but I will say that I most certainly saw a great deal of myself IN Harry Haller.
Max von Sydow as Harry Haller
Max von Sydow as Harry Haller
Dominique Sanda as Hermine
Dominique Sanda as Hermine
Pierre Clementi as Pablo
Pierre Clementi as Pablo
Carla Romanelli as Maria
Carla Romanelli as Maria
Set in Basel, Switzerland in the 1920s, German author Harry Haller is the self-proclaimed Steppenwolf of the title. A bourgeois intellectual and pacifist suffering from gout, loneliness, and a lingering post-war malaise occasioning both his physical abandonment of his nationalist homeland and his spiritual dissociation from mankind. He is, both inside and out, a stranger in a strange land. A divorcé, Harry reads a great deal, drinks to excess, treats his pain with morphine, and spends entirely too much time living in his head. His soul longs for the peace and tranquility of self-realization--things he’s long-believed attainable by living the life of an intellectual ascetic--but due to an indistinct restiveness within, his searching only makes his isolation and self-estrangement more keenly felt.

This is in part due to Harry’s fault-finding dissatisfaction with the world around him. For he is a man who holds the achievements of the dead in high regard—the lofty spirituality in the compositions of Mozart, the idealist principles in the literature of Goethe—while disparaging the modern, jazz-age distractions of the day (automobiles, gramophones, dancing) as idle and worthless as those who pursue them.
Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf - 1974
The other side of Harry's discontent is rooted in his lifelong belief that he is preternaturally a subhuman creature separate and apart from others. A creature of contrasting dual personality…neither wholly a man nor fully a beast…that exists as a primitive animal masked by the thin veneer of a cultured human.

Harry’s conformist side—nurtured and validated by bourgeois society—is ever at war with his wild, rebellious side, a side that has been vigorously suppressed since childhood. All would be fine if Harry were content to walk the centrist tightrope preferred by his peers, but in finding himself emotionally drawn to the hedonist and intellectually drawn to the spiritualist; Harry is, within his soul, unable to make peace with his conflicting sybarite compulsions and pious sensibilities.
For Madmen Only
Tractate on The Steppenwolf
Czechoslovakian artist Jaroslav Bradac contributed surreal cutout
art and animation reminiscent of Terry Gilliam (Monty Python)

In much the same way that the depressed spirit longs for the release of sleep, Harry’s beleaguered soul has come to idealize the possibility of suicide. Unfortunately, the notion of irrevocable escape by his own hand (in his 50th year, via “an accident while shaving”) only makes the pain of life easier to accept, not easier to endure.
Beset by dark, brooding feelings of dread, Harry aimlessly roams the desolate streets, seeking occasional solace on the stairs of neighbors’ homes—like an animal too wild to be allowed indoors, too domesticated to survive on its own in the wilds. In this middle world he sits, comforted by the clean steps, polished doors, perfumed window boxes, and warmth emanating from behind the closed doors; resigned to remaining alone and apart from the interactions of humans…a wolf residing on the steps...a Steppenwolf.
When it appears as though Harry has reached the point of seeing or feeling little else other than the pain of his own existence, spiritual deliverance materializes in the form of an enigmatic courtesan named Hermine. Hermine introduces him first to a razor (“You don’t have to use it, you know”); then an antithetical option to his thirst for rebellion (“Obedience is like sex: nothing like it if you’ve been without it too long”); culminating with a mocking castigation of his presumptuous world-weariness (“You’ve got a lot of nerve saying you’ve tasted life to the bottom and found nothing in it. You haven’t even found the easy, fun part yet!”).
Alfred Bailou as  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Alfred Bailou as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 
Allowing himself to be taken under the wing of this mysterious stranger who knows more about him than he's ever dared explore within himself, Harry embarks—through means both medicinal and metaphysical—upon a trippy, existential Magical Mystery Tour of spiritual discovery and soul realignment. A journey back to the eternal "home" of the self where beckons the unification of the physical and the spiritual.
Helen Hesse as Frau Hefte
Helen Hesse, Hermann Hesse's granddaughter appears as Frau Hefte 

To recognize Steppenwolf as a film that clearly bears the stamp of the ‘70s is to be grateful that Hermann Hesse’s illusive philosophical tome was adapted in the era when cinema freely embraced its inner weird. Fred Haines’ directorial vision (he also penned the screenplay) manages to be every bit as structurally bizarre as its source material and makes no effort to simplify Hesse’s inscrutable prose or make the wordy speeches sound less pedagogic. Steppenwolf is a film inherently meditative and somber, but it is not without wit, it is extremely gentle with its characters, and ultimately, its message proves to be both optimistic and joyous.

It’s a boon to a film like this that the ‘70s were also a time when movies felt free to pace themselves; developing character and employing editing methods to manipulate the concept of time (in this instance, fractured and stream-of-consciousness) for dramatic effect. Lastly, the look of Steppenwolf—so in step with the nostalgia trends of the day—atmospherically evokes the look and feel of the 1920s in tableaus stylized and shimmering in one moment, dark and distorted the next. 
Not a film without its flaws, Steppenwolf is nonetheless a faithful adaptation true to the tone of a sometimes-difficult book.
Pablo, a jazz musician, bandleader, and drug dealer, appraises Harry: "He is very beautiful." 


WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM 
Steppenwolf may have had the distinction of being a film adaptation of a classic 1927 novel written by a Nobel Prize-winning author, but in the pop-cultural zeitgeist of the ‘70s, it felt as though it was at least the 900th movie released in the still-young decade about a nonconformist male in search of his true self.  With its emphasis on depicting the psychedelic states of mind-expansion, while exploring such then-popular counterculture themes as self-actualization (the EST movement was still in its infancy), spirituality, drug use, and free love; Steppenwolf at times feels like a film made a good four or five years earlier.
Henry Haller enters the Magic Theater
The first and only directing effort of screenwriter Fred Haines (Ulysses – 1967) and apparently a labor of love, Steppenwolf was released in December of 1974. And although I wanted to see it badly, in terms of publicity overload, Christmas '74 was so dominated in my mind by the debuts of both The Towering Inferno and The Godfather Part II, the modestly-budgeted Steppenwolf slipped past my radar. I didn't manage to see it until well after its initial run, practically waiting for it to fall into my lap when it was booked at the movie theater where I ushered on weekends. I wound up seeing it at least five times during its run.
A critic once observed that the character of Henry Haller seemed psychologically stalled at 14; the age he first caught sight of, but failed to speak to, his first love, Rosa Kreisler. I'm sure this was meant as a criticism of the perhaps superficial conflicts at the center of Haller's existential crisis. But it was an observation that explained (at last) why, at age 15, I found myself so completely relating to a character nearing his 50s. I was 17 when the film version was released, but no less overburdened with adolescent angst, so I was thrilled to discover Steppenwolf to be as affecting on the screen as it was on the page. Seeing it now, I know I feel much the same. I guess there's something elemental about the quest to find out who we are that changes very little, no matter what our age. 
Like Hesse’s Magic Theater itself, Steppenwolf is not for everyone. Full of bizarre images and curious rhythms, it’s a strange film in ways that suggest it is indeed intended "For Madmen Only." But there’s something so gentle about it…something so touching in its reaffirmation of the redemptive power of laughter and the importance of not taking life or oneself so seriously, that I found it to be an uncommonly engaging cinema experience. Steppenwolf didn't inspire in me my usual desire to forget myself and escape into a film's narrative; it encouraged me to constantly look for traces of myself in its characters and situations. 
Pablo and Hermine require Harry to confront and extinguish his
concept of personality before entering the Magic Theater 


PERFORMANCES
Possessed of a Mona Lisa smile and an ethereal sensuality, Dominique Sanda’s enigmatic beauty graced many a European arthouse film in the’70s (The Conformist, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 1900). Often cast as an unattainable dream girl or sphinxlike woman of mystery, the French-born actress has the gift of always looking as though she knows a great deal more than she’s willing to disclose. Steppenwolf was the first time I ever saw Sanda in a film, and in an instant, she won me over as the most ideal Hermine imaginable.

In a role requiring her to be more of an idea than a person, the actress’ years as a model prove an asset in bringing to Hermine a striking, vaguely androgynous bearing in her stillness (at times she resembles Mark Lester in Oliver!) that is at once open and yet impenetrable. Her intelligent, questioning eyes express wit and wisdom, her marvelous voice and sometimes unusual vocal inflections only contributing to her overall otherworldly allure. (Like a great many European films with international casts, Steppenwolf relies quite a bit on dubbing.)
As mesmerizing an entity as Dominique Sanda’s Hermine is for me (she has the same enlivening effect on me as she does Harry and the film in general), it is Max von Sydow’s agonized Steppenwolf who ultimately makes the film work. The Ingmar Bergman stalwart (11 films total) gives one of my favorite of his many outstanding screen performances as Hesse's alter-ego. Anyone reading Hesse’s novel is bound to picture Harry Haller differently, but I can’t think of an actor better suited to play the range of compulsions and conflicts raging war within Hesse’s straining-against-optimism hero.
Von Sydow, who was forty-four at the time, uses his rangy elegance and gentle, expressive eyes to create empathy for his character. A factor that prevents Haller’s internal and largely self-inflicted despair from ever coming across as self-centered.  


THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Steppenwolf did well in San Francisco where its then-vanguard imagery and visual effects made it a favorite of the college crowd (aka, young people who got stoned at the screenings). In addition to the many fantasy interludes and dream-logic lapses throughout the narrative (in one naturalistic scene a bicyclist is viewed moving in reverse in the background), the 15-minute Magic Theater sequence presents a surreal reinforcement of the philosophical themes of Hesse's novel pertaining to identity, the psyche, and the spirit.
Harry enters the Magic Theater
Life's Options
Jaroslav Bradac
The Metaphysical Struggle of Modern Man
The Magic Theater of the Mind
The Fragments of Harry's Personality


THE STUFF OF DREAMS
When Steppenwolf (book and film) came into my life, I was every bit as rootless as Hesse's hero. Like a great many teenagers, I carried around an image of myself as being too smart and too sensitive for this world. Perceived by others as a kid who “kept to himself”; inside me, there wasn't actually much of a real “self” to keep to…being painfully shy, I merely felt isolated and apart. These feelings were intensified by my home life (the only boy in a household of women with a loving but old-fashioned dad); burgeoning self-awareness (onset puberty as a gay teen); my environment (a Black male in an all-white neighborhood); a spiritual crisis (a Catholic school kid, growing ever more disillusioned with organized religion); and the times in which I lived (I never knew a U.S. that wasn’t at war, and it was Nixon’s second term, to boot). 
Hermine introduces Harry to the joys of contemporary culture 

As a way of dealing with my shyness, I read a great deal, often gravitating to works by Black authors that fed my rage and abhorrence of injustice. Even more often I was caught off guard by the works of white authors who engaged in the erasure of my existence and/or experience. Out of instinct more than intent, films became my own personal Magic Theater of self-examination and discovery. A means by which my mind could be surrendered...all the better to explore what lay within my soul.

Like Hesse's Harry Haller, over time I learned to appreciate the aspects of my own nature (cerebral/emotional) that once felt at odds with the person I thought I wanted to be.
And it was then I discovered the frivolous joy of good/bad films. My life changed the moment I realized absolute truth and beauty could be found as authentically in the sight of Jane Fonda doing a zero-gravity striptease as could be found in the haunting image of a medieval knight playing chess with the specter of Death. It taught me that life is simultaneously sacred and profane, crass and astute, nightmarish and glorious...and none of it is to be taken too seriously.
Movies taught my adolescent self to lighten up, and in accord, open up. In the end, this is what saved me. Just as it did Harry Haller.
Laughing with the Immortals
Learning to laugh with the Immortals

For Madmen Only
Steppenwolf - 1974
"As a body, everyone is alone. As a soul, never."


Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2019

20 comments:

  1. I had no idea there was a movie version of this book! As a teenager, I, too, read this book. But to be honest, I first picked it up thinking it was a book about werewolves or something. I quickly discovered it was not and still struggled through it as best I could. I was also a shy teenager who read a great deal but I probably wasn't really ready to take on some of Hesse's ideas. A bit ironic given that I took a rather adolescent pride in the fact that I was voted "most studious" by my class. (As an adult reflecting on that title, I suspect it was a euphemistic way of saying "most boring.")

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  2. Ha! I doubt that! To be voted “most studious” sounds like a pretty snazzy epithet for a shy teen. I think “Steppenwolf” must have been a popular title with teenagers, what with page after page of brooding introspection and search for self. And I know what you mean about the title. Just the other day my partner and I were remarking how, before reading the book, we assumed the Steppenwolf to be a person’s name or some kind of mythical beast.
    The film is so faithful to the book, I’m surprised it hasn’t become one of those movies screened in literature classes. Thanks very much for reading this essay, Rick. Nice to know someone else was drawn to this book around the same age. Perhaps one day you’ll check the film out and see how Hesse’s ideas stack up for you after so many years.

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  3. Argyle, here. I've been awol forever. Haven't read this yet, but had to quickly comment because of Dominique Sanda's face. Wish I was a teenager again, not sure why. Have you ever heard Jessye Norman's recording of "Four Last Songs" by Richard Strauss, some of the text by Hermann Hesse? I will read soon.

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    1. Hi Argyle
      So nice to hear from you! I have Dominique Sanda's face to thank for that...certainly a face that inspired many directors.
      I took a listen to Jessye Norman's "Four Last Songs" on YouTube, then sought out the Hesse poem(s) quotes used in the lyrics. What an exquisite piece of music! And the poems cited capture Hesse's essential optimism and belief in life's beauty that comes through in passages of "Steppenwolf." Can't thank you enough for introducing this piece. Very moving and superbly sung, and an outstanding, enlivening reference for you to contribute here.

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  4. It's intriguing to see Sanda and Clementi appearing in this film together after they both had very memorable roles but shared no screen time in Bertolucci's The Fascist (my absolute favorite from his ouvre). Here's another film I hadn't heard of, and despite being a very angsty and cultured teenager, I never managed to read any Hesse. Max von Sydow is so brilliant that his starring in this alone makes me want to see it.

    Your observations on the nature of introspection are so astute that I had to go over some of your sentences several times. What an immense joy to read.

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    1. Hi Sandra
      Thanks for reminding me that Clemti and Sanda were in a film together (but apart). I first had to Google "The Fascist" thinking it to be a Bertolucci film of which I was unaware, only to realize they called it "The Conformist" here. I saw it for the first time only about two years ago, and while my lifelong infatuation with Dominique Sandra made her unforgettable in it, I need to watch it again to acquaint myself with the participation of the striking Clementi.
      I love the word angsty, by the way. Something I thought I would have outgrown since my teens, but find I've only come to manage better as an adult (it feels safety-pinned to me like Peter Pan's shadow). This movie went over big with the post-hippie crowd in Berkeley and San Francisco, but I'm gathering that it pretty much disappeared or was never given a release much elsewhere.
      Max von Sydow is awfully good, so if you find yourself tempted to check this out someday for that reason, it's perhaps the best reason of all.
      I'm glad you enjoyed this post, and as ever, I thank you for granting me and the readers of this blog the pleasure of your thoughtful comments.

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  5. Hi! I just read the magnificent novel by Hermann Hesse and this afternoon I had the opportunity to see the film adaptation on big screen at the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Congratulations on the insight of your comments.

    I invite you to visit my blog http://cinefiliasantmiquel.blogspot.com/2019/08/el-lobo-estepario-1974.html

    Greetings from Barcelona (Spain),
    Juan

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    1. Thanks, Juan. Thought I'd passed you by here, but see now I responded on your site, earlier.

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  6. Thank you so much for this article. I have always loved this novel (even now in my early 50s), and find it to be a deeper philosophical meditation on the themes you discuss than many give it credit for. I didn't know that someone made a film version of it--very eager to see it. Thanks again--you have a great site!

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    1. Hello, jpr1
      What a very kind thing to say. Thank you!
      I hope you do get your hands on a copy of the film, I can't vouch for your finding it to be as fulfilling a companion and adaptation of the written word as I; but I'm sure you'll be intrigued by the filmmaker's choices and method of tackling such a rich source material novel. You're lucky in one respect--the current DVD release is a beautiful restoration that probably looks better than the film did on original release.
      Thanks very much for reading this, and for taking the time to comment so generously.

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  7. Director Haines and Joe Strick, director of Haine's Oscar-nominated screenplay for Strick's film version of James Joyce's "Ulysses" were life-long friends, and were both mutually committed to bringing canonical literary masterpieces to the screen, no matter how "unfilmable" Hollywood considered them to be. In Strick's case, it was his obsession with Joyce (he directed a 1978 film version of "Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man") and with Haines it was Hesse. What is unique about both of these men, no matter how successful or unsuccessful these adaptations turned out to be, was that they both belonged to a long-lost 1970's studio era that unlike today would financially gamble with such high-minded intellectual and artistic ambition.

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    1. Hi Barry - Thanks for the background information about the friendship and artistic kinship of Haines & Strick. Such a collaborations --- inspired by passion, not boxoffice glory ---become more the stuff of myth in the age of whatever one calls those MARVEL franchise releases (product?). Anyhow, when i think of what was great about that tiny window of the '70s when movies were realizing the potential of the '60s New Wave, I think of films like STEPPENWOLF, and those American Film Theater releases of Ely Landau,
      What a time. Thanks very much for reading this post and sharing your knowledgeable comment.

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    3. Can’t think of a nicer tribute to Irene Cara and her sad and very premature passing than to have your memories surrounding your work on FAME inspire the “unusually public” ruminations shared above. How remarkable to work in an industry where passionate artistic iconoclasts are few, yet you’ve managed to work with most of them straight out the gate (I didn’t know Ely Landau was behind the rather wondrous “The Chosen”…a film I’d forgotten about but was happy to be reminded of).

      Thanks for providing us with a bit of glimpse into how challenging it must have been to be a young artist emergent at the tail end of Hollywood’s second Golden Age. To be faced with Reagan Era stardom (the time of the corporate Brat Pack star) while possessing the artistic integrity of the early ‘70s, must have been a challenge. Perhaps not a particularly pleasant one, but one that time certainly must have revealed as having dodged several soul-killing bullets (like that Fame TV show). It must be gratifying to have amassed a body of work you can look on with pride and without compromise.

      I thank you for your exceptionally kind words regarding this blog, Barry. It means a lot. Especially since you and I got off to such a phenomenally bad start.
      Here's to being free to openly disagree (should the occasion arise again), but perhaps now with a mutual respect and a sense of not being absolute strangers.

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    4. Oh, that terrible and nasty introductory spat so long ago with "Looking For Mr. Goodbar"! I truly must apologize for that. Over time, I have plainly come to see how beautifully and appreciatively you write about films as a matter of course, whether or not you have personal affections for a particular film that I dislike. With "Goodbar" there needs to be a candid confession, fueled by personal experience. As much as I sincerely think that it was a very bad (and reactionary) adaptation of a very powerful and haunting book, (especially coming from the man who directed "In Cold Blood") I am admittedly prone to an even deeper prejudice against it through having been forced to hear over the grapevine that Paramount executives were so very proud of their soon-to-be released Oscar-winning "prestige" dramatic blockbuster about the dark side of the then-current '"disco-set singles scene and it's discontents," and embarrassed, if not outright disgusted, by this vulgar and cheap little star vehicle for a sitcom star that were saddled with called "Saturday Night Fever" which we know, surely know will go absolutely nowhere fast and outright make the studio look bad, since it's a movie that has no pedigree, nobody of importance in it, and nothing that we really ever believed in or even felt worthy of doing. And it's "Goodbar" that we believe in and support, and this "Fever" thing really is something we'd rather bury, and thank god it will be buried, much to our relief.. And I kid you not. That was the absolute state of mind around Paramount in the months before either film was released. So forgive me: I guess I had a little extra bit of schadenfreude I wanted to throw around. The fact is, I have come to admire your writing so much that I actually feel very bad about it in hindsight, and now look forward in the future to any opportunity to agree to disagree, with your kind permission.

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    5. My gosh, Barry. Talk about beautiful writing! That's probably the nicest, most sincere, and most honest apology I've ever read. (Humbly accepted, of course!) You expressed yourself with such eloquent candor & self-awareness that it caught me rather off guard. In these shameless times, no one DOES contrite anymore. They forget that there’s something noble in acknowledging one’s humanity.
      I confess that my first reading your comments found me at a crossroads: mostly I was moved by how open and genuine you come across with your words. But part of me was gobsmacked that Paramount not only got it so wrong when it came to your film, but were so initially disrespectful of a true Holywood rarity: a film of genuine quality film that becomes a popular and culturally influential success (if not, indeed, a phenomenon). Thank you for providing a bit of context and insight into a distant episode.
      I’d be both flattered and…now that I better appreciate your own passion for film from a perspective far different and more intimate than mine…honored to agree to disagree with you any time, Barry. You’re a true gent.

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  8. Thank you for honoring this film which I finally got on DVD, although not in original widescreen, sadly. And the music score has vanished. I cannot even find remnants of it in George Gruntz' native Switzerland.
    It taught me that life is simultaneously sacred and profane, crass and astute, nightmarish and glorious...and none of it is to be taken too seriously." Indeed. At the time, I think this film saved me from imploding.

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    1. I'm happy to hear that nearly 50 years after its release, people are still discovering this marvelous film. And apparently finding inspiration in the same timeless themes. I hope you someday get to revisit STEPPENWOLF in glorious widescreen, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that you have some lick locating the gorgeous musical score.
      My thanks to you for reading this essay. Bigger thanks for being so kind as to leave a comment. Cheers!

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    2. from Silvanus Slaughter: Your review was marvelous, and one of the few intelligent pieces I have found on the net. I wish a widescreen DVD was available in the USA. Guess I'm fortunate to have the version I own. But I do want the score so badly. Been searching for it since 1974.

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    3. So you're a director and composer? How fabulous! No wonder you've been so captivated by this film's score. Such a pity it's so hard to find. And as far as the film goes, I hold out hope that The Criterion Collection may one day discover it and provide us with a true widescreen experience.
      In the somewhat copyright unregulated internet of 90s, there used to be several sites that featured the scores of movies that didn't have official soundtrack albums (I discovered Georges Delerue's sumptuous score for "Rich and Famous"). Those days are gone, but it's hard for me to believe someone out there doesn't feel the same as you about STEPPENWOLF's score.
      I have faith that one day you'll find it.
      Again, thank you for the kind words. It's nice to hear from someone who likes this film as strongly. Ig you ever write about it, you MUST tell me.
      Cheers, Silvanus!

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