As an eye-witness, I can testify that in the same moment that he uttered these words he turned pale, stood up from the table, and with a gesture of disgust pointed to something on his plate. It was a white maggot crawling along a sardine.
The next day my friend is obliged to break off his evening meal because he finds a piece of chicken surrounded by white maggots. He cannot eat although he is ravenously hungry, and becomes alarmed, but only for a moment.
"What does it mean? What does it mean?" he says.
"One should not speak ill of the dead. They revenge themselves."
"The dead? But they are dead!"
"Exactly. And therefore they are more alive than the living."
My friend had, as a matter of fact, accustomed himself to speak openly of the weaknesses of the deceased, who, in spite of all, had been a good friend to him.
Some days later, as we sat at table in the verandah of a garden-restaurant, one of the guests exclaimed, "Look at that rat! What a big fellow!"
No one had seen it, and they laughed at the visionary.
"Wait a minute!" he said, "you will soon see. It is there under the planks!"
A minute passed, and a cat came from under the planks. "I think we have had enough of rats," my friend exclaimed, apparently much disturbed.
After some time has elapsed, one evening I hear a knock at my door after I have gone to bed. I open it, and find myself face to face with my friend, who looks disturbed and excited. He asks to be allowed to stay and rest on a sofa, because there is a woman who screams the whole night in the house where he lives.
"Is it a real woman, or a spectre?"
"Oh, it is a woman with cancer, who only wants to be able to die. It is enough to drive one mad. If I don't end my days in an asylum, it will be strange."
There is only a short sofa, and to see the tall man stretched out on such a thing, and two chairs placed by it, is as though one saw a slave on the rack. Hunted out of his pleasant house, and his comfortable bed, deprived of the simple pleasure of being able to undress himself, he rouses my sympathy and I offer him my bed as a sign of my gratitude. But he refuses. He asks to have the lamp lit, and the light falls straight on the unfortunate man's face. He fears the dark and I promise to sit up and watch. He lies and murmurs to himself till sleep has pity on him. "There is no doubt it is a sick woman, but still it is strange."
For two whole weeks he is obliged to seek rest on other people's sofas. "This is really hell!" he exclaims.
"Just what I think" is my answer.
Another time when the "white woman" has appeared to him in the night he himself suggests the possibility that it may be a punishment. True to my rôle, I confine myself to a sceptical silence. I pass over others of his adventures and come to the story of the Madonna and the telepathic vision he had of some one at the moment he died. It is quite short. On the occasion of an excursion into the country my friend found himself in a little company gathered on the shore of a lake. In an access of cheerfulness and forgetfulness of his painful experiences he made the following suggestion,—
"This, on my faith, is the proper scene for a revelation of the Blessed Virgin! It would be a good speculation to set up a shrine for pilgrimages."
At the same moment he turned pale, and to the great astonishment of his companions he exclaimed almost in an ecstasy,—
"Just now he has died."
"Who?"
"Lieutenant X. I saw him lying in the death struggle, the chamber, the attendants, and everything!"
His friends laughed at him, but on their return to the town they were met by the news of Lieutenant X.'s death. It had happened suddenly, exactly at half-past seven o'clock, at the same moment in which the visionary received intimation of it. Those who had ridiculed him were greatly impressed, so that they involuntarily shed tears, not of grief, for the death of the lieutenant was a matter of indifference to them, but of emotion at the strange occurrence.
The newspapers made a fuss over the affair. The honest ones did not deny the fact, while the dishonest ones suggested that the witnesses were liars. The result was a protest on the part of my friend the heretic, who acknowledged the real facts of the case, but explained them as an accidental coincidence.
I grant that a certain apparent modesty would rule out as impossible all interference of invisible powers in our petty affairs, but this modesty itself may be an "obstacle cast up by the unrepentant." This seems to be suggested by the following words of Claude de Saint Martin:—
"It is perhaps this wrong connection of ideas (that the earth is only a mere point in the universe) which has led men to the still falser notion that they are not worthy of the Creator's regard. They have believed themselves to be obeying the dictates of humility when they have denied that the earth and all that the universe contains only exist on man's account, on the ground that the admission of such an idea would be only conceit. But they have not been afraid of the laziness and cowardice which are the inevitable results of this affected modesty. The present-day avoidance of the belief that we are the highest in the universe is the reason that we have not the courage to work in order to justify that title, that the duties springing from it seem too laborious, and that we would rather abdicate our position and our rights than realise them in all their consequences. Where is the pilot that will guide us between these hidden reefs of conceit and false humility?"
Meanwhile I have gained a thorough knowledge of all my friend's weaknesses, and can predict the troubles he will suffer by day or night by observing his behaviour. My observations lead me to the conclusion that all his ailments spring from "moral" grounds. But "moral" is a word which is nowadays despised and suspected, and I am not the man to reassert it. Only on one occasion, when the unfortunate man was in a state of deep depression, I said to him out of sympathy, and by way of putting up a sign-post for him, "If you had read Swedenborg before your last attack at night you would have gone into the Salvation Army or become a hospital attendant!"
"How so?" he asked. "What does this Swedenborg say?"
"He says a great deal, and he it is who has saved me from going mad. Consider now, he has given me back the power of sleep by a single sentence of four words."
"Say it, I beg you."
My courage sank, and has failed me every time that the possessed man has asked for this formula of exorcism.
But here I write down the four words which are worth all the doctors' regulations, "Do this no more."
Everyone's conscience must interpret the word "this" for himself. I, the undersigned, declare that I have obtained health and quiet sleep by obeying the above receipt.
THE AUTHOR.
This is a confession, not an exhortation.
No one has been so tried by fate as the doctor of whom I spoke in the first chapter under the sobriquet of leader of the youthful revolters. After countless changes of opinion he has become sober and almost morbidly scrupulous. He regards himself as bankrupt in everything, and distrusts everyone. Deprived of the faculties which render us capable of enjoyment and of suffering, he is indifferent to everything. He began his career as an enthusiast for the freedom of the individual, for the democracy, and for the liberation of women, and has seen his hopes completely disappointed. He who was an ardent champion of free love has seen the woman of his choice, for whom he himself had great respect, sink in the deepest infamy.
He is now thirty years old. During some years' residence abroad he has lived a painful life as a lonely wanderer; he has worn threadbare clothing and endured poverty, hunger, and cold, and all the humiliations of a man laden with debt. He has slept at night in woods and open parks for want of a dwelling; and has nourished himself with the gelatine and starch which were used in the laboratory where he was an assistant. As a result of his privations he had less power to resist alcohol, and although lie was not a drunkard, the effect of the small quantity of drink which he could procure was too much for him. Abandoned to the mercy of fortune by his relatives, he was helped by a Swedenborgian, whom he hardly knew, to enter an institution for the cure of nervous diseases. After some months he was healed, and returned to the university in Sweden. He was told, however, that he would have to practise total abstinence. It was he who lent me Swedenborg'sArcana Coelestia, and later on hisApocalypsis Revelata. He had not read them himself, but had found them in the library of his mother, who was a Swedenborgian.
One thing surprises me, that although up to my forty-ninth year I have never come across the works of Swedenborg, whom the cultivated classes in Sweden openly despise, yet now he turns up everywhere—in Paris, on the Danube, in Sweden, and that in the course of a single half year.
Meanwhile my friend, with his destroyed illusions, remains indifferent in spite of the blows which fate has repeatedly dealt him. He cannot stoop, and thinks it unworthy of a man to kneel to unknown powers who might some day reveal themselves as tempters, whose temptations or tests one should have resisted to the uttermost.
I do not conceal from him my new religious views without, however, wishing to influence him. "You see," I say to him, "religion is a thing which one must appropriate for oneself; it is no use preaching it."
Often he listens to me with apparent attention, and often he smiles. Sometimes he disappears for a fortnight together, as though he were vexed, but he comes again and looks as if he had been brooding over some thought. Sometimes, in order to help him, I let drop, as though by chance, an interrogatory remark, "Something is happening, isn't it?"
"I don't know; it is so absurd that there must be jugglery in it."
"What is it, then?"
"Every morning when I enter the laboratory I find my things in confusion,—you cannot think what it looks like,—and the table in a mess. And that although I take the greatest pains to keep the place clean."
"Is it some one with a spite against you?"
"Impossible, for I am the last to leave the room, and if there were anyone he would be immediately discovered."
"Then is it——?"
"Well, who?"
"Some one unseen?"
"I don't say so, but latterly it does seem as though some one were watching me, and could read my most secret thoughts. And if I ever kick over the traces, I am pulled up at once in a moment."
"Have you ever had similar abnormal experiences before?"
"Not I myself, but my mother and sister, who are Swedenborgians, have. Wait a minute, though! I did have one, just two years ago, in Berlin."
"Let me hear it."
"It was as follows:—I entered a lavatory near the Linden Avenue one evening, and saw beside me a bare-headed man of a questionable and strange appearance. He had a protuberance on the back of his neck, and to my astonishment he 'yodeled'[1]like a Tyrolese. The painful impression which this individual with his lugubrious physiognomy made on me remained with me unconsciously, and in order to shake it off I continued my walk outside the town, and finally found myself in the country. Tired and hungry I entered an inn, where I ordered at the bar a Frankfort sausage and a pint of beer. 'A Frankfort sausage and a pint—' of beer,' repeated some one at my side, and, as I turned round, I saw the man with the protuberance on his neck. Thrown into complete confusion, I went on my way without waiting for what I had ordered, and, unable to give the reason for my abrupt departure, I have never thought any more of this insignificant occurrence, but I have a very vivid impression of it, and it just now recurs to me."
When he had finished he covered his eyes with both hands, as though he wished to obliterate the picture by rubbing the pupil of his eye. which still retained the portrait of the man.
While the above narrative with its details is fresh in the reader's memory, I will introduce another, which, through its connection with the former, may perhaps bring us a little nearer our goal. On the first of May I went pretty early through the Park to eat dinner with a school-master. When we had sat down at a table in the large, open balcony, which was empty, I suddenly experienced a feeling of discomfort, and as I turned round on my chair I perceived a man of very questionable appearance, and with an unsteady, irresolute expression in his eyes.
"Who is that?" I asked my companion, who was an old inhabitant of Lund, and knew the whole population.
"A foreigner, certainly."
The stranger, bare-headed and silent, came near, and, when he stood directly in front of me, he regarded me with such a piercing look that I felt a burning pain in my breast. We changed our seats. The man followed us without breaking silence. His looks were neither malicious nor severe, but rather melancholy and expressionless like those of a somnambulist. Then I had a recollection, which was too vague to be conscious, and addressed a question to my companion. "That man there resembles one of our friends, but which of them?"
"Yes, certainly; he is just like what our friend Martin would be at forty-five."
At this moment there sprang up from a mass of confused memories the Berlin Lavatory and "Friend Martin" (as the unfortunate doctor was called), pursued by this stranger.
Meanwhile the man had taken a seat near us and turned his back. How great was my astonishment when I noticed a protuberance on his neck! In order to clear up the matter, I asked my companion, "Can you see a protuberance on this fellow's neck?"
"Yes, distinctly. What of that?"
I did not answer, because it would have been too long a story. Besides, the school-master was a declared foe of occultism.
The same evening I saw Friend Martin in the middle of a swarm of students. Without beating about the bush I asked him directly, "Where were you to-day between one and two o'clock?"
"Why? Why do you ask that?" And he looked embarrassed as he spoke.
"Only answer my question."
"I was asleep. I am not accustomed to sleep in the day, and therefore your question embarrassed me."
"And yet you go outside and roam about during your sleep."
"It looks like it, for some days ago, while I slept, I saw the fire which had broken out in the Museum. That is the simple truth."
After this admission on his part, I described to him the appearance in the Park, and compared it with what he had seen in Berlin.
But he was in good spirits, and though the protuberance in the neck made him shudder, he exclaimed, "The description fits to a T. It is my double!"
And we both laughed.
I pause here for a moment in order to expound the possible theories of the phenomenon known as a man's "double" (doppelgänger).
The Theosophists assume it as a fact that the soul, or the "astral body," has the power to quit the body and to clothe itself in a quasi-material form which under favourable circumstances can be visible to many. All so-called telepathic experiences are thus explained. The creations of the imagination have no reality, but some visions and hallucinations have a kind of materiality. Similarly, in optics, one distinguishes between virtual and real images, the latter of which can be projected on a screen or fixed on a sufficiently sensitive photographic plate.
Suppose that an absent person thinks of me, by evoking my personality in his remembrance; he only succeeds in creating a virtual image of me by a free and conscious effort of his own. But suppose again that an old aunt of mine in a foreign country sits at the piano without thinking of me, and sees me then standing in person behind the instrument; she hasseena virtual image of me.
And this actually happened in the autumn of 1895. I remember that I was then passing through a dangerous illness in the French capital, when my longing to be in the bosom of my family overcame me to such a degree that I saw the inside of my house and for a moment forgot my surroundings, having lost the consciousness of where I was. I was really there behind the piano as I appeared, and the imagination of the old lady had nothing to do with the matter. But since she understood these kind of apparitions, and knew their significance, she saw in it a precursor of death and wrote to ask if I were ill.
In order the better to elucidate this problem, I will insert here an essay of my own printed last year in the Initiation, which has points of contact with the above-mentioned occurrence.
"OBSERVATIONS ON THE IRRADIATION ANDDILATABILITY OF THE SOUL."
"To be beside oneself" and "to collect oneself" are two phrases in every-day use, which express well the capacity which the soul possesses of expanding and contracting. Fear makes it shrink and contract, and joy, happiness, or success make it expand.
Go alone into a full railway carriage, where no one knows another, but all are sitting silent. Each feels, according to his degree of sensibility, an extreme discomfort. There is a manifold crossing of irradiations from souls in different moods which causes a general feeling of oppression. It is not warm, but one feels as though one were stifled; the senses, charged to overflowing with magnetic fluids, feel as if they must explode; the intensity of the electric streams, strengthened by influence and condensation, perhaps also by induction, has reached its maximum.
Then some one begins to speak. A discharge of electricity takes place, and the various currents neutralise each other when all present enter upon a trivial conversation to relieve a physical necessity.
The person fond of solitude draws back into his corner, closes his inner eye and ear, and sinks in himself in order to ward off a new "influence." Or he looks at the landscape through the window, and lets his thoughts wander, while he steps outside the magic circle of those shut up with him, to whom, however, he is indifferent. The secret of the success of a great actor consists in his inborn capacity of letting his soul "ray out," and thus enter into touch with the audience. In great moments there is actually a radiance round an eloquent speaker, visible even to the incredulous.
The actor with a dreamy nature, who has a keen intelligence, and has studied much, but not acquired the power of going out of himself, will never make a great impression on the stage. Shut up in himself, his mind cannot penetrate the minds of the spectators.
In the great crises of life, when existence itself is threatened, the soul attains transcendent powers.
It seems sometimes as though the fear of poverty drove the tortured soul to fly to seek a life somewhere else, where living is easier, and it is not for nothing that suicide attracts the unhappy by promising to open the gates of their prison.
Some years ago I had the following experience. One autumn morning I sat at my writing table before, the window, which looked out on a gloomy street in a small industrial town of Moravia. In the neighbouring room, of which the door was on the jar, my wife, who was expecting her first confinement, was resting.
While I was writing, I imagined myself transplanted to a scene many hundred miles north, which I well knew. Although where I was, it was autumn and approaching winter, I found myself in my thoughts under a green oak in the sunshine. The little garden which I had myself cultivated in my youth was there; the roses—I could tell them by their names—the syringas, the jasmines exhaled their scents so that I could smell them; I picked caterpillars off my cherry-trees, I trimmed the currant-bushes *** Suddenly I hear a hoarse cry, I find myself standing on the ground, I feel a kind of cramp in my spine causing intolerable pain, and fall senseless on my chair.
When I recover consciousness, I find that my wife had come from behind in order to say good morning, and had quite gently laid her hand upon my shoulder.
"Where am I?" That was my first question, and I said it in my native language, which my wife, as a foreigner, did not understand.
The impression which I received from this occurrence was, that my soul had dilated itself and left the body without breaking the connection of the invisible threads, and I needed a certain though ever so small an interval to recollect in some degree that I was conscious and intact in the room, where I had just been sitting and working. If, according to the old methods of explanation, my soul had merely sunk in herself and still remained confined in the limits of the body, it would have been able to expand itself again with greater readiness and swiftness, and I would not have suffered so much through being surprised during my absence.
No. I was absent, "franvarande"—that is the Swedish word for "distracted "—and my soul returned so suddenly as to cause me suffering. But the pains were felt in the neighbourhood of the spine and not in the brain, and this reminds me of the important functions attributed to the "plexus solaris" when I studied medicine in my youth.
Another occurrence, which happened to me three years ago in Berlin, is to my mind sufficient proof that the exteriorisation or displacement of the soul can happen under certain extraordinary circumstances. After soul-shattering crises, troubles, and an irregular life, I was sitting one night between one and half-past in a wine shop, at a table which was always reserved for our coterie. We had been eating and drinking since six o'clock, and I had been obliged the whole time to carry on the conversation practically alone. The problem was for me to give sensible advice to a young officer who was on the point of changing a military career for that of an artist. As he happened to be at the same time in love, his nerves were in a very over-strained condition, and after having received in the course of the day a letter containing reproaches from his father, he was quite beside himself. I forgot my own wounds while I was tending those of another. The task was a difficult one, and caused me some mental disturbance. After arguments and endless appeals, I wished to call up in his memory a past event which might influence his resolve. He had forgotten the occurrence in question, and in order to stimulate his memory, I began to describe it to him. "You remember that evening in the Augustiner tavern." I continued to describe the table where we had eaten our meal, the position of the bar, the door through which people entered, the furniture, the pictures *** All of a sudden I stopped. I had half lost consciousness without fainting, and still sat in my chair. I was in the Augustiner tavern and had forgotten to whom I spoke, when I recommenced as follows: "Wait a minute, I am now in the Augustiner tavern, but I know very well that I am in some other place. Don't say anything *** I don't know you any more, but yet I know that I do. Where am I? Don't say anything; this is very interesting." I made an effort to raise my eyes—I don't know if they were closed—and I saw a cloud, a background of indistinct colour, and from the ceiling descended something like a theatre curtain; it was the dividing wall with shelves and bottles.
"Oh yes!" I said, relieved after feeling a pang pass through me, "I am in F.'s" (the wine shop).
The officer's face was distorted with alarm, and he wept.
"What is the matter?" I said to him.
"That was dreadful," he answered.
"What?"
When I have related this story to others, they have objected that it was a fainting fit or an attack of giddiness, words which say little and explain nothing. First and foremost, fainting fits and giddiness are accompanied by loss of consciousness. Nor was it a case of amyosthenia (depression of muscular action), as I remained sitting on my chair, and spoke consciously about my partial unconsciousness.
At that time I was unaware of the phenomenon itself, and did not know the expression "exteriorisation of sensibility." Now that I know it, I am sure that the soul possesses the power of expansion which it exercises in a very high degree during ordinary sleep, and at death to such an extent that it leaves the body, and is by no means extinguished.
Some days ago, as I was going along the pavement, I saw an inn-keeper before his door, loudly abusing a knife-grinder who was standing in the street. I did not want to cut off the connection between the two, but it could not be avoided, and I felt a keen feeling of discomfort as I passed between the two quarrelling men. It was as though I divided a cord which was stretched between them, or rather as though I crossed a street which was being sprinkled on both sides with water.
The connection between friends, relatives, and especially between husband and wife, is a real bond and has a palpable actuality. We begin to love a woman, and deposit our soul piece-meal, so to speak, with her. We double our personality, and the loved one, who was formerly indifferent and neutral, begins to clothe herself in our other "I," and becomes our counterpart. When she takes it into her head to depart with our soul, the pain which it causes us is perhaps the most violent that there is, only to be compared to that of a mother who has lost her child. There is a painful sense of emptiness and woe to the man who has not strength enough to begin to divide himself again and to find another vessel to fill. Love is an act through which the masculine blossom attains to fruit, because it is the man who loves, and it is a sweet illusion to suppose that he is loved by his wife, his other self, a creation of his own.
Between a married pair the invisible bond often develops itself in a mediumistic fashion. They can call each other from a distance, read each other's thoughts, and practise mutual "suggestion" when they like. They no longer feel the need of speech; the mere presence of the beloved gives joy, her soul radiates warmth. When they are divided the bond between them expands; the sense of longing and pining increases with distance, sometimes to such a degree as to involve the breaking of the bond, and thereby death.
For many years I have taken notes of all y dreams, and have arrived at the conviction lat mail leads a double life, that imaginations, fancies, and dreams possess a kind of reality.
So that we are all of us spiritual somnambulists, and in dreams commit acts which, according to their varying character, accompany us when we are awake with feelings of satisfaction or an evil conscience and fears of the consequences. And from reasons, which I reserve the right to explain some other time, I believe that the so-called persecution-mania really springs from pains of conscience after evil deeds which one has committed in sleep, and of which vague recollections haunt us. The imaginations of the poet, which prosaic, souls so despise, are realities.
"And what about death?" you ask.
To the brave man who does not set too great a value on life, I would at an earlier stage of my experience have recommended the following experiment, which I have repeatedly made, not without troublesome, but in all cases easily cured, physical results.
After closing windows, doors, and the stove-flue, I place an open bottle containing cyan-kalium on the table and lie down on the bed. The carbonic acid in the air liberates in a little time the cyanic acid in the bottle, and the well-known physical symptoms follow—a slight throbbing of the throat, and an indescribable taste in the mouth, which I might by analogy call "cyanic," paralysis of the biceps-muscle, and pain in the stomach. The deadly effect of cyanic acid remains still a mystery. Different authorities ascribe different methods of operation to this poison. One says, "paralysis of the brain"; another, "paralysis of the heart"; a third, "suffocation as a secondary consequence of the medulla oblongata being attacked," etc.
But since the effect may show itself at once, before absorption has taken place, the method of operation must be regarded much more as psychical, especially when one has regard to the use of cyanic acid in medicine as a quieting remedy in so-called nervous diseases.
As regards the condition of the soul under this experiment, I would say the following: It does not seem to undergo a slow extinction, but rather a dissolution during which the pleasant sensations far outweigh the trifling pains. The mental capacities gain in clearness, exactly contrary to their condition at the approach of sleep; one is in full possession of one's will, and I can break off the experiment by corking the bottle, opening the window, and inhaling chlorine or ammonia.
I do not lay much stress upon it, but supposing that we could obtain satisfactory proofs of the temporary condition of death into which Indian fakirs can throw themselves, the experiment might be prolonged without danger. In case of an accident one must proceed with the various methods which are used to resuscitate a person who has been choked. The fakirs use warm compresses on the brain, the Chinese warm the pit of the stomach and cause sneezing. In his remarkable book,Positive and Negative(1890), Vial relates, following Trousseau and Piloux: "In the year 1825 Carrero stifled and drowned a large number of animals, which he afterwards resuscitated a long time after death by simply inserting needles into their brain."
In my bookInferno, I have spoken of my brother in misfortune the German-American painter, and of the quack Francis Schlatter who was suspected of being his "double." The time has come when I am obliged to compromise my friend with the sole object of helping the investigation into the relation between them.
My friend's name was H., whether real or assumed. When I had returned to Paris in August 1897, I was turning over, one day, theRevue Spiritefor the year 1859. I found there an article, headed "My Friend H." Under this title a certain Herr H. Lugner had published in the feuilleton of theJournal des Débatsfor 26th November 1858 a narrative which he asserted to be fact, and offered to witness to, if necessary, as he himself was a friend of the hero of the adventure. The latter was a young man, aged five and twenty, of irreproachable morals and thoroughly amiable character.
H. could not keep awake as soon as the sun went down. An irresistible weariness came over him, and he sank gradually in a deep sleep, from which nothing could rouse him. In brief, H. lived a double life, so that at night he committed criminal acts in Melbourne under the name William Parker. When, later on, Parker was executed, H., in Germany, was simultaneously found dead in his bed.
Whether the story was true or a product of the imagination, it interested me, because of the coincidence of names, and also of some of the circumstances. Modern literature has already dealt with the phenomenon of theDoppelgänger(double) in the famous romanceTrilby, and in another by Paul Lindau. It would be interesting to know whether the authors have based their narrative on facts or no.
Meanwhile we return to friend Martin. In order to obtain some distraction, he undertook a cruise to Norrland and Norway, and expected to derive from it a real feeling of freedom and much pleasure. After some weeks I meet him in a street in Lund.
"Have you had a pleasant journey?" I ask.
"No; a devil's journey! I don't know what to believe. There is certainly some one who challenges me, and the fight is unequal. Listen! I went to Stockholm to amuse myself at the great exhibition, and though I have hundreds of friends there, I did not meet one. They were all in the country, and I found myself alone. I only stayed in my room one day, and was then turned out of it by a stranger to whom my brother, by mistake, had previously promised it. Ill-luck made me so stupid that I did not go and see the exhibition, and as I wandered about alone in the streets, suddenly a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. It was a very seriously disposed uncle of mine, whom I had not seen twice in my life, and who was the last man I wished to see. He invited me to spend the whole evening with him and his wife. I had to swallow everything I disliked. It was like witchcraft.
Then I went on alone in a railway carriage for hundreds of miles, through scenery that was deadly dull. At Areskutan, the principal object of my excursion, there was only one hotel, and in this hotel all my antipathies had appointed a rendezvous. The Free Church pastor was feeding his flock there, and they were singing psalms morning, noon, and evening. It was enough to drive one wild, and yet it seemed quite natural. There was only one thing which seemed to me somewhat strange, or with a smack of the occult about it. That was, that in this quiet and well-kept hotel they were hammering up large boxes at night."
"Over your head?"
"Yes; just over! And, strangely enough, this hammering followed me to Norway. When I ask the hotel manager for an explanation, he declared he had heard nothing." "That is just like my own experience."
"Yes."
I would not have related these trivial and in themselves repellent stories, did not their very absurdity suggest the existence of a reality, which yet is neither real objectively nor a mere vision, but a phantasmagoria called up by the invisible powers, to warn, to teach, or to punish.
This condition, called by the theosophists "Astralplanet," is also described by Swedenborg in the last part of hisArcana, "Visiones et Visa."
There are two kinds of visionary states which are beyond nature, and in which I have been placed merely to experience what they are like, and what is to be understood by the expressions to be "rapt from the body," and "to be carried by the spirit" to another place.
1. A man is placed in a condition between sleep and waking; when he is in this state he seems to himself to be fully awake. This is the condition of being "rapt from the body," when one does not know whether one is in the body or out of the body.
2. Wandering through the streets of a city and over the fields, and holding converse with spirits, I seemed to myself to be as much awake and alert as on ordinary occasions. Thus I wandered without quitting the road. Yet all the while I was in a vision, and saw woods, rivers, palaces, houses, men, and other things. But after I had wandered thus for some hours, I fell suddenly into a state of corporeal hallucination, and was aware that I was in another place. At this I was greatly surprised, and saw that I was in such a condition as those are who are said to be "carried by the Spirit to another place."
Friend Martin since his return from his excursion lives alone in his parents' house, because the family have scattered in different directions for their summer holiday. I will not say that he is afraid, but he is uncomfortable. Sometimes he hears steps and other sounds from the room of his absent sister, sometimes sneezing. Some days ago he heard in the middle of the night a sharp metallic sound, like that of a scythe being sharpened. "Taking it all in all," he concluded, "wonderful things do occur, but if I once began to engage in dealings with the invisible powers I should be lost."
That was his last word, as autumn approached with great strides.
[1]Gave a peculiar cry.
[1]Gave a peculiar cry.
While all these occurrences went on in every-day life, I continued my studies in Swedenborg—that is to say, his works, which are hard to procure, fell into my hands one after the other, at very long intervals.
In theArcana Coelestia, hell is represented as everlasting, without any hope of an end, and bare of every word of comfort. TheApocalypses Revelataexpounds a method of systematic penance, and the result was that I lived under its spell till the spring. Sometimes I shook it off while I entertained the hope that the Prophet was deceived in details, and that the Lord of Life and Death would show Himself more merciful. But what cannot be denied is the startling coincidence between Swedenborg's visions, and all events great or small which have happened to me and my friends during this year of terror.
It was not till March that I found in an antiquarian bookseller's shopThe Wonders of Heaven and HellandConjugal Love. Not till then was I freed from the spiritual burden that had secretly oppressed me ever since I first became aware of the Invisible. In them I learned that God is Love. He does not reign over slaves, and has therefore bestowed on mortals the gift of free will. Evil has no independent power, but is a servant of God, fulfilling the functions of a disciplinary force. Punishments are not endless; every one is free to expiate by patience the wrongs which he has done. The sufferings which are, imposed upon us are intended to improve our character. The operations which constitute the preparation for a spiritual life begin with "Devastation" (vastatio), and consist in constriction of the chest, difficulty of breathing, symptoms of suffocation, heart affections, terrible attacks of fear, sleeplessness, nightmare. This process, which Swedenborg underwent in the years 1744 and 1745, is described in his book Dreams.
The diagnosis of this kind of illness corresponds in every point to the ailments which are just now so common, so that I do not shrink from drawing the conclusion that we are approaching a new era in which there will be spiritual awakening, and it will be a joy to live. Angina pectoris, sleeplessness, nightly terrors, all these symptoms which doctors wish to class as epidemic, are nothing else but the work of unseen powers. For how can the systematic persecution of healthy men by unprecedented bizarre occurrences, disturbances and annoyances be regarded as an epidemic sickness? An epidemic of coincidences? That is certainly absurd.
Swedenborg has become my Virgil, who guides me through hell, and I follow him blindly. He certainly is a terrible chastiser, but he knows also how to comfort, and he seems to me less severe than the Protestant theologians. "A man may amass riches, if he does so honestly and uses them honestly; he may clothe himself and live according to his means; he may hold intercourse with people of the same social standing as himself, enjoy the innocent pleasures of life, look joyful and contented, and not morose. He can, in a word, live and act like a rich man in this world, and after he dies go straight to heaven, if only in his heart he has faith in God and love to Him, and behaves as he should towards his neighbour."
"I have met several of those who, before they died, had renounced the world and retired into solitude, in order to devote themselves to the contemplation of heavenly things, and thereby to make themselves a surer path to heaven. They nearly all had a gloomy and depressed appearance, seemed to be annoyed that others were not like them, and that they themselves were not rewarded with greater honour and a happier lot. They live in hidden places, like hermits, almost in the same way as they had lived in our world. Man is created to live in harmony with others; in society and not in solitude he finds numerous opportunities of exercising Christian mildness towards his neighbours."
In solitude one only contemplates oneself, forgetting all others. Consequently one thinks only of oneself, or of the world, in order to avoid it or to feel the want of it, which is the opposite of Christian love.
As regards the so-called everlasting punishments, at the last moment, the seer appears as a deliverer, and allows a ray of hope to dawn on us. He says, "Those among them, for whose deliverance one may hope, are set in waste places, which only afford a picture of desolation. They are left there till their sorrow has darkened into despair, because this is the only means to conquer the evil and falsehood which rule them. Arrived at this point, they cry out that they are no better than animals, that they are full of hate and all kinds of abomination, and that they are damned. These exclamations are pardoned them, as being cries of despair, and God softens their mood, so that their expressions of reproach and abuse do not transgress the assigned limits. When they have suffered all that can be suffered, so that their bodies are also dead, they are troubled no more about it, and are prepared for deliverance. I have seen some of them taken to heaven after they have been visited with all the sufferings of which I have spoken. When they were admitted, they displayed such great joy that I was moved to tears." What the Catholics call "conscientia scrupulosa," a tender conscience, is caused by malicious spirits, who induce pangs of conscience for nothing at all. They delight in laying a load on the conscience, and this state has nothing to do with the improvement of the sinner. In a similar way there are unwholesome temptations. Evil spirits evoke in the depth of the soul all the evil it has committed since childhood, and bring its worst side uppermost. But the angels discover all the good and true which they can in the exhausted soul. That is the strife which is revealed under the name, "pangs of conscience."
I stop here, because I do my Master an injustice by tearing asunder the web which he has so well woven together, and by exhibiting the fragments as samples. Swedenborg's work is one of enormous compass, and he has answered all my questions, however presumptuous they may have been. Disquiet soul, suffering heart, "Take up and read."
Exhausted by these mysterious persecutions, I have for a long time undertaken a careful examination of my conscience, and, true to my new resolve not to justify myself as against my neighbour, I find my past life abominable and am disgusted at my own personality.
"It is true that I have incited the younger generation to rebel against law and order, against religion, authority, morality. That is my godlessness, for which I am now I punished, and which I now retract."
So I say to myself, and after a pause in the current of my thoughts I reverse the question, and ask, "And the others, the opposers of my revolutionary views, the pious defenders of morality, of the State, of religion, cantheysleep at night? and have the Powers prospered them in their worldly affairs?"
When I pass in review the pillars of society and their various fortunes, I am compelled to answer, "No!"
The brave champion of the Ideal in poetry and in life, the poet popular with the steady and respectable bourgeois class, cannot now sleep at night owing to violent attacks of hysteria. To add to his troubles, his guardian angel left him in the lurch, so that his affairs became embarrassed from his engaging in speculations which nearly reduced him to beggary. It is no joy for me to remember this, for it increases my depression when I see how the noblest efforts only lead to beggary.
What of my opponent in religion? He who wished to have me imprisoned for blasphemy has himself been arrested for falsification in the transfer of property. But don't think, reader, that I make his sin an excuse for my blasphemies. It is a trouble to me not to be able to keep my belief in the purifying effect of Christianity, in view of such a startling example, to the contrary.
Then the lady who took morality under her protection, the friend of oppressed women, the prophetess who in fiery and candid essays preached celibacy to young men—what has become of her? No one knows it, but on her there rests a dark and terrible suspicion. Edifying, is it not? As to the other pillars of moral and religious order, I pass them over, whether they have put a bullet through their brains, or decamped to avoid an ominous investigation. Speaking briefly, judgment seems to strike the just and unjust alike, and one may prove as good as another.
What is it then that is taking place in the world to-day? Is it the irrevocable doom pronounced against Sodom? Must all perish? Are there none righteous? Not one!
May we then be friends and suffer in common as fellow-sinners, without exalting ourselves, one above another.
I have apologised for my culpable actions, and abjure my past. Let me now say a word in self-defence. It is a common characteristic of youth in all ages to be in revolt, frivolous, disorderly. Am I the first inventor of revolt or sin? Formerly I was the youth led astray, the child of my time, the disciple of my teachers, the victim of seduction. Whose is the fault, and why have they made me a scapegoat? Suppose that it was a lie, and that I am not the person for whom men take me?
But here the accusation of "black magic" comes in to turn the scales.
But it was out of ignorance that I had recourse to that.
Well then, what about the revolt against the Invisible?
Yes, I did revolt. But how about the others who spent their lives on their knees in devotion and self-denial, and who have all been disowned?
Let us acknowledge that the state of affairs is desperate, and that we are all handed over to the power of the Prince of this world to be bowed in the dust and humbled till we are disgusted with ourselves, in order that we may feel homesick for heaven. Self-contempt, anger at one's own personality, the result of vain endeavours to improve oneself—that is the way to a higher life.
And remember one thing: the way to Rome, the imperial route lay through Canossa!
In spite of all the sufferings which I have endured, the spirit of rebellion in me is still erect, and suggests doubts as to the benevolent designs of my invisible guide. An accident (?) has brought into my hands Schikaneder's text of the opera of theMagic Flute. The sufferings and temptations of the young pair suggest to me the thought that I have let myself be duped by misleading voices, and that I had bowed myself and submitted, simply because I could not endure the pains and difficulties.
Immediately I remember Prometheus who storms at the gods while the vulture gnaws his liver. And at last the rebel is admitted to the circle of the Olympians without making an open recantation.
The fire is now kindled, and immediately evil spirits add fuel to it.
An occult magazine, sent by post, encourages my cowardice by propounding subversive theories, such as the following: "As is well known, in the old books of the Veda, Creation is represented as a single act of sacrifice, in which God, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself by dividing Himself." That is the very idea which I have expressed in the Mystery Play appended to "Meister Olof."
Further: "All the elements, which conjointly constitute the universe, are nothing else than fallen divinities, which, through the stone, plant, animal, human, and angelic kingdoms, climb up to heaven, only to fall down again." This idea was characterised by the famous Alexander von Humboldt and the historian Cantu as sublime.
(Yes, it is sublime.)
"As is well known, the Greek and Roman gods were originally men. Jupiter himself, the greatest of all, was born in Crete, where he was suckled by the she-goat Amalthea. He thrust his father from the throne, and took all possible precautions not to be dethroned himself. When the giants attacked him, and most of the gods left him in the lurch, in a cowardly way, and hid themselves under the shapes of plants in Egypt, he had the good luck, with the help of the bravest gods, to remain victor. But it was not without considerable difficulty."
"In Homer, the gods fight against men and are sometimes wounded. Our Gallic forefathers also fought against heaven, and shot arrows against it when they believed themselves threatened by it. The Jews were animated by the same feelings as the heathen. They had Jehovah (God), but they also had Elohim (Gods). The Bible begins thus: 'He who is, who was, and who will be—the One in the many.'"
"When Adam had committed the 'beata culpa,' which, so far from being a fall, was a sublime step upwards, as the snake had prophesied, God said, 'Behold, Adam has become asone of us, to know good and evil.' And He added, 'Now, therefore, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.'"
The ancients accordingly saw in the gods men who had elevated themselves to despotic power, and sought by an overthrow of the constitution to maintain that power, while preventing others from raising themselves in their turn. Hence sprang the conflict, men endeavouring to drive away the usurping deities, and the latter struggling to maintain the power they had arrogated to themselves.
"Now the flood-gates are opened with a vengeance! Only consider! We are gods!"
"And the sons of the gods descended to earth and married the daughters of men, and they brought forth children. From this inter-mixture came the giants, and all famous men, warriors, statesmen, authors, artists."
This was fine seed to sow in a refractory mind, and the Ego inflated itself again, "Only think! We are gods!"
The same evening when all in the restaurant were in high spirits, a circle was formed round a doctor of music. My friend the philosopher, to whom I had imparted the discovery of our relationship to the gods, asked to hear Mozart'sDon Juan, especially the finale of the last act.
"What is that about?" asked one, who was not at home in the classical repertory of music.
"The devil comes and carries away the Sybarite."
The abysmal torment, so well described by Mozart—who very likely knew pangs of conscience of this kind, as the husband of a woman he had seduced committed suicide on his account—is unrolled in a succession of melancholy tones like a cutting neuralgia. The laughter stops, the jests cease, and when the piece is finished there is a painful silence.
"Here's to your health!" says some one.
They drink. But the cheerfulness is at an end, the Olympic mood is quenched, for the night is coming on and the terrible chromatic successions of notes echo like innumerable waves which rise and fall, and hurl human derelicts aloft in the air in order to swallow them the next moment.
While the descendants of the gods make vain attempts to assume a tone becoming their high birth, night has come, and the restaurant is closed. The party must break up and go, each to his lonely bed. As we pass the Cathedral veiled in the shadows of the night, a white light suddenly flashes on the façade, on which are depicted saints and sinners kneeling before the throne of the Lamb.
"What is that?" we ask, for there is no thunderstorm. We are startled, and remain standing, only to find that it is a photographer working in his shop by the magnesium light. We are annoyed at our nervousness, and for my part I involuntary think of the theatrical lightning when Don Juan is carried off.
As I enter my room I feel a kind of alarm, chilly and feverish, at the same moment. When I have taken off my overcoat, I hear the wardrobe door open of itself. "Is any one there?"
No answer. My courage sinks, and for a moment I feel inclined to go out again and spend the night in the dark and dirty streets. But weariness and despair hamper me, and I prefer to die in a comfortable bed.
While I undress I look forward to a bad night, and once happily in bed I take up a book to distract my thoughts. Then my toothbrush falls from the washing-stand on to the ground without any visible cause. Immediately afterwards the cover of my jug rises and falls again with a clash before my eyes. Nothing has occurred to shake the room, the night being perfectly still.
The universe has no secrets veiled from giants and geniuses, and yet reason is helpless before a jug cover which defies the law of gravitation. Fear of the unknown makes a man who thought he had solved the riddle of the Sphinx tremble!
I was nervous, terribly nervous; I would not, however, quit the battlefield, but continued to read. Then there fell a spark, or a small will-o'-the-wisp, like a snowflake from the ceiling, and was quenched on my book. Yet, reader, I did not go mad!
Sleep, sacred sleep, assumes the form of an ambush in which murderers lurk. I dare not sleep any more, and yet have no power to keep myself awake. This is really hell! As I feel the torpor of sleep stealing over me, a galvanic shock like a thunderbolt strikes me, without, however, killing me.
Hurl thy shafts, proud Gaul, against heaven! Heaven in its turn never stops hurling.
Since all resistance is useless, I lay down my arms although after relapses into refractoriness. During this last unequal strife I see will-o'-the-wisps even in broad daylight, but I attribute this to an affection of the eyes. Then I find in Swedenborg an explanation of the meaning of these flickering flames which I have never seen since:—
"Other spirits try to convince me of the opposite of what the instructing spirits have said to me. These spirits of contradiction were upon earth men who were banished from society for their criminality. One recognises their approach by a flickering flame which seems to drop before one's face. They settle on people's backs, and their presence is felt in the limbs. They preach that one should not believe what the instructing spirits, together with the angels, have said, nor behave himself in accordance with their teaching, but live in licence and liberty as he chooses. These spirits of contradiction generally come when the others have gone. Men know what they are worth, and trouble themselves little about them; but through them they learn to distinguish between good and evil, for the quality of good is learnt through acquaintance with its opposite."
Feb. 12th.—Pulled out of bed after I have heard a woman's voice. St. Chrysostom, the misogynist, says: "What is woman? The enemy of friendship, the punishment that cannot be escaped, the necessary evil, the natural temptation, the longed for misery, the fountain of tears which is never dry, the worst masterpiece of creation in white and dazzling array."
"Since the first woman made an agreement with the Devil, why should her daughters not do so likewise? Created as she was from a crooked rib, her whole turn of mind is crooked, and inclined towards evil."
Well said! St. Chrysostom, the Golden mouthed!
Feb. 28th.—The chaffinches warble, the blue glimpses of the sea in the distance invite me, but as soon as I reach after my carpet-bag I am attacked by the invisible powers. Flight is in fact cut off from me. I am imprisoned here. In order to distract my mind I try to work at my bookInferno, but that is not permitted me. As soon as I take up the pen my power of recollection seems to be extinguished. I can remember nothing, or only such events as have no significance.
April2nd.—A German author asks my opinion of Count Bismarck for a paper which is collecting adverse and favourable opinions of the Chancellor. My own was this: "I must admire a man who has understood how to dupe his contemporaries so well as Bismarck. His work was supposed to be the unification of Germany, and yet he has divided the great kingdom in two, with one Emperor in Berlin and another in Vienna."
In the evening there is a scent of jasmine blossoms in my room, a gentle feeling of peace take possession of my mind, and this night I sleep quietly (Swedenborg says that the presence of a good spirit or angel is known by a balmy perfume. The theosophists maintain the same, but call angels "Mahatmas").
April5th.—I hear that a great piece of sculpture by Ebbe, representing a crucified woman, has been broken during its passage to the Stockholm Exhibition. On the other hand, my friend H.'s picture of the crucified woman has been seized for debt, and hung up in a courtyard over the dustbin.
April10th.—Read a good deal of sorts—Chateaubriand'sMémoires d'outre-tombe; Las Casas'Diary of St. Helena. Who was Napoleon? Of whom was he the re-incarnation?
He was born in Ajaccio, of Greek colonists who derive their name from Ajax. 1. Ajax, the son of Telamon, was conquered by Odysseus, and maddened by fury he slaughtered the flocks of the Greeks in the belief that he was spreading death among his enemies. One day when one of the patron gods of Troy had enveloped both armies in a cloud in order to help the flight of the Trojans, he cried, "O Zeus! give us light, though thou slay us in the light!" 2. Ajax, son of Oileus, suffered shipwreck on the home voyage from the siege of Troy, but saved himself by climbing a cliff where he obstinately defied the gods, and was, as a punishment, drowned in the depths of the sea. "Ajax defying the gods" has become a proverb. Napoleon was prematurely born on a mat adorned with scenes from the Iliad. Paola a Porta said one day to the young Napoleon, "There is nothing modern about thee; thou art a man out of Plutarch."
Before Napoleon's birth, Rousseau had interested himself in Corsica, and its inhabitants wished to have him as a ruler. "There is still a land in Europe," he said, "where it is possible to give laws: that is the island of Corsica. I have a foreboding that this little island will fill Europe with wonder."
Nordille Bonaparte in the year 1266 pledged his honour for Konradin von Schwaben, who was executed by Charles of Anjou. The Franchini branch of the Bonaparte family bore on its shield of arms three golden lilies, like the Bourbons.
Napoleon was related to Orsini. Orsini was the name of the assassin who attempted the life of Napoleon in. On three islands Napoleon spent his days of adversity,—Corsica, Elba, and St. Helena. In a geography which he composed in his youth he mentions the last, with the two words "little island." (Too little indeed he found it afterwards!) During the war with England, he sent a cruiser without any obvious cause to the neighbourhood of St. Helena.
The death of Napoleon affords plenty of material to the imagination of an occultist.
"There was a terrible storm, the rain fell without intermission, and the wind threatened to sweep everything away. The willow-tree under which Napoleon had been accustomed to take the air had been broken; the trees of the plantation had been tom up and scattered about. A single indiarubber still stood erect, till a whirlwind seized it, tore it up, and hurled it in the mud. Nothing that the Emperor loved could survive him."
The patient could not bear the light; he had to be kept in a dark room. When at the point of death he sprang out of bed in order to go out into the garden.
"Spasmodic twitchings of the navel and the stomach, deep sighs, out-cries, convulsive movements which during the death-struggle terminate in a loud and painful sobbing." Noverrez, who had been ill, became delirious. "He imagines that the Emperor is threatened, and calls for help."
After Napoleon had given up the ghost, a smile of peace lay on his lips, and the corpse retained this look of calm in the funereal vault for nineteen years. When the grave was opened in 1840, the body was in a state of perfect preservation. The soles of the feet were white. (White soles of the feet, according to Swedenborg, signify the forgiveness of sins.)
The hands were well preserved (the left, however, was not white), soft, and still retained their beautiful shape. The whole body was dead-white, as though one saw it through thick lace. In the upper jaw were only three teeth. (A strange coincidence—the Duke of Enghiem[1]had only three teeth when he was shot.) And in parenthesis it may be added the Duke was borne after parturition-pangs of forty-eight hours. He was dark blue, and without a sign of life. Having been wrapped in a cloth that had been steeped in spirits, he was held too close to a light and took fire. Not till then did he begin to live.
Napoleon was placed in a coffin in a green uniform (green clothes are a favourite dress of wizards).
Chateaubriand writes: "Napoleon's commission as a captain was signed by Louis xvi. on the 30th of August 1792, and the King abdicated on August 10th.
"Explain this who can. What protector furthered the schemes of this Corsican? The Eternal."
April18th, Easter day.—On a fire-brand in the oven I saw the letters I.N.R.I. (Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews).
May3rd.—I begin to work at the Inferno.
I am told that a very well-known journalist has been suddenly attacked by nightly visitations of the now common nervous disease which I have described. The occultists connect this with an inconsiderate obituary notice which he wrote of a worthy man recently dead.
In reading Wagner'sRheingold, I discover a great poet, and understand now why I have not comprehended the greatness of this musician, whose music is the only proper accompaniment to his words. Moreover, Rheingold has a special message for me:—
"Wellgunde: Knowest thou not who alone is permitted to forge the gold?"Woglinde: Only he who renounces the might of love and drives the joy of it away, obtains the magic power of moulding the gold into a ring."Wellgunde: Well then, we are safe and free of care, for all that live loves. Love none can avoid."Woglinde: Least of all he,—the amorous imp.* * * * *"Alberich(stretching his hand after the gold): I tear the gold from the cleft and forge the avenging ring, for—let the stream hear it!—I curse love!"
"Wellgunde: Knowest thou not who alone is permitted to forge the gold?
"Woglinde: Only he who renounces the might of love and drives the joy of it away, obtains the magic power of moulding the gold into a ring.
"Wellgunde: Well then, we are safe and free of care, for all that live loves. Love none can avoid.
"Woglinde: Least of all he,—the amorous imp.
* * * * *
"Alberich(stretching his hand after the gold): I tear the gold from the cleft and forge the avenging ring, for—let the stream hear it!—I curse love!"
May12th.—With dull resignation I have for five months drunk coffee made of chicory without complaining. I wanted to see if there was any limit to the enterprising spirit of the dishonest woman who makes my morning coffee. For five months I have suffered, now I will for once enjoy the divine drink with the intoxicating aroma. For this purpose I buy a pound of the dearest coffee in the middle of the day. In the evening I read in Sar Peladan'sL'Androgyne, p. 107, the following anecdote of an old missionary: "At the end of a missionary journey, during an important sermon, I am struck with powerlessness as soon as I have pronounced the words 'my brothers,'—not a thought in my brain, not a word on my lips. 'Holy Virgin!' I prayed secretly, 'I have only retained one weakness, my cup of coffee, I offer it up to Thee.' Immediately my elasticity of mind returned, I outdid myself and benefited many souls."
What a rôle coffee has played in my family as a disturber of domestic peace! I am ashamed to think of it, all the more as a happy result does not depend on goodwill or cleverness, but on circumstances out of our control.
Accordingly to-morrow I shall have the greatest enjoyment or the greatest chagrin.
May13th.—The woman has made the most horrible coffee imaginable.
I sacrifice it to the Powers, and henceforth drink chocolate without murmuring.
May26th.—Excursion to the beech-wood. Some hundreds of young people have collected there. They sing melodies belonging to the time when I was young, thirty years ago. They play the games and dance the dances of my youth. Melancholy overcomes me, and suddenly my whole past life unrolls before the eyes of my spirit. I can survey the path I have traversed, and feel dazzled. Yes, it will soon end; I am old, and the path descends to the grave. I cannot restrain my tears,—I am old.
June1st.—A young doctor of a gentle nature, and such a sensitive disposition that the mere fact of his existence causes him suffering, spends the evening in my company. He also is plagued by qualms of conscience; be bewails the past which cannot be altered, though not worse than that of others. He explains to me the Mystery of Christ. "We cannot do again what has once been done, we cannot obliterate a single evil deed; and this thought leads to pure despair. Then it is that Christ reveals Himself. He alone can wipe out the debt which cannot be paid, perform a miracle, and lift off the burden of an evil conscience and of self-reproach. 'Credo quia absurdum' and I am saved.
"But that I cannot, and I prefer to pay my own debts by my sufferings. There are hours when I long for a cruel death, to be burnt alive at the stake, and to feel the joy of injuring my own body—this prison of a soul which strives upwards. The kingdom of heaven for me means to be freed from material needs, to see enemies again in order to pardon them and to press their hands. No more enemies! No malice! That is my kingdom of heaven. Do you know what makes life bearable for me? The fact that I sometimes imagine it to be only half real, an evil dream inflicted on us as a punishment, and that in the moment of death we awake to the real reality and come to see that it was only a dream,—all the evil that one has done, only a dream! So the pangs of conscience vanish together with the act that was never committed. That is redemption and deliverance."
June25th.—I have now finished writingInferno. A lady-bird has settled on my hand. I await an omen for the journey for which I am preparing. The lady-bird flies off towards the south. Very well, let us go south.
From this moment I resolve on going to Paris. But it seems to me doubtful how far the Powers will agree with me. A prey to inner conflicts I let July pass, and with the commencement of August I wait for a sign to determine me. Sometimes it appears to me that the guides of my destiny are not agreed among themselves, and that I am the object of a protracted discussion. One urges me on, and another holds me back. Finally, on the morning of the 24th August, I get out of bed, pull up the window-blind, and see a crow standing on the chimney of a very high house. It stands just like the cock on the tower of Nôtre Dame, and looks as though it were about to fly towards the south.
I open the window. The bird rises, keeps close to the wind, flies straight towards me, and disappears. I take the omen, and pack my things.