GUIDE: No, not that.
SCHOLAR: In many respects it is clear to me what the word “releasement” should not name. At the same time, I know less and less what we are talking about. We are attempting, after all, to determine the essence of thinking. What does releasement have to do with thinking?
GUIDE: Nothing, if we conceive of thinking according to the heretofore prevailing concept—that is, as a representing. But perhaps the essence of the thinking that we are now searching for is engaged in releasement [in die Gelassenheit eingelassen]. [110]
SCIENTIST: Even with my best will to do so, I cannot representationally set before myself43 this essence of thinking.
GUIDE: Because precisely this best will and the manner of your thinking— namely representing and the will-to-represent—are hindering you.
SCIENTIST: Then what in the world should I do?
SCHOLAR: I am asking myself this too.
GUIDE: We should do nothing at all, but rather wait.
SCHOLAR: That is a poor consolation.
GUIDE: Poor or not, we should also not expect any consolation, which we still do when we merely sink into disconsolateness.
SCIENTIST: What then should we wait upon? And where should we wait? I hardly know anymore where I am and who I am.
GUIDE: None of us know this anymore, as soon as we cease fooling ourselves.
SCHOLAR: And yet we still have our path?
GUIDE: To be sure. Yet by forgetting it too quickly, we give up thinking.
SCIENTIST: What should we still think about, if we are to cross over to and enter into [über- und eingehen] the as yet unexperienced essence of thinking?
GUIDE: About that from which alone this transition [Übergang] can happen.
SCHOLAR: Then you would not like to discard the established interpretation of the essence of thinking?
GUIDE: Have you forgotten what I said about what is revolutionary? [111]
SCIENTIST: Forgetfulness really seems to me to be a particular danger in such conversations.
SCHOLAR: If I understand correctly, we should now see what we are calling releasement in connection with what was spoken of as the
43. The phrase sich vorstellen would idiomatically be translated as “to conceive of” or “to imagine.” However, here I have combined the sense of “representing” with the literal meaning of the phrase, “to set before oneself.”—Tr.