And, as a matter of fact, molten lead poured upon a deposit of chalk containing phosphate of lime, also assumed on its under-side a golden colour. The powers, being unpropitious, did not allow me to finish my experiments. A year later, in Lund, a sculptor, who made experiments in his own potteries, gave me some glaze composed of lead and silicium, by means of which I for the first time produced in the furnace mineralised gold of great beauty. Out of gratitude, I showed him the two pieces of cardboard numbered 207 and 28. Is one to call it "accident" or "coincidence," this sign of an irrefragable logic?
I repeat that I have never been plagued by visions, but actual objects sometimes seem to me to assume a human shape in a grandiose style. Thus, one day the cushion which my head has been pressing during a mid-day siesta, looks like a marble head carved in the style of Michael Angelo. One evening when I return home in the company of the "double" of the American empiric doctor, I discover, in the half-shadow of the alcove where my bed is, what looks like a gigantic Zeus reposing on it. Before this unexpected sight my friend remains seized with an almost religious fear. His artistic eye comprehends at once the beauty of the outline. "There is a great forgotten art," he says, "born again! That is where we ought to learn drawing!"
The more one looks at it, the more lifelike and terrible it appears. Obviously, the spirits have become realists like the rest of us mortals. It is no mere accident, for on certain days the cushion takes the shape of terrible monsters, such as Gothic dragons and serpents; and one night after I have spent a hilarious evening, I am greeted on my return by a mediæval demon, a devil with horned head and other appurtenances. I was not at all frightened; it looked so natural, but it also made on my mind the impression of something abnormal and unearthly.
When I invited my friend the sculptor to look at it, he was not at all astonished, and called me into his studio, where a pencil sketch hanging on the wall surprised me by its grace of outline.
"Where have you got that from?" I asked. "A Madonna, is n't it?
"Yes, a Madonna of Versailles, copied from the floating plants in a Swiss lake!"
A new-discovered art of nature! Naturalistic clairvoyance! Why blame naturalism when it introduces a new art full of capacities of growth and development. The old gods return, and the watchword of the poets and artists, "Back to Pan!" has roused such a strong echo that nature has awoken from her long sleep of centuries. Nothing can exist on earth without the concurrence of the powers. Now naturalism did once exist, therefore it ought to be, and what ought it obviously to be—a new-born harmony of matter and spirit.
The sculptor is a seer. He tells me that he has seen Orpheus and Christ side by side in a block of stone, and adds that he intends to return there and use them as models for a group for the Salon.
As I went down the Rue de Rennes one evening with the same seer, he drew my attention to a book-shop window where coloured lithographs were exhibited. They represented fantastic scenes with human bodies whose heads were replaced by pansies. In spite of my botanical observations, I had never before seen the likeness between the pansy and the human face. My friend seemed greatly surprised at it.
"Only think!" he said. "When I came home last evening the pansies in my window-box looked at me like so many human faces. I thought it was a hallucination of my overexcited nerves. And here are these pictures drawn a long time ago. It is then a fact and no illusion, for this unknown artist has made the same discovery before me."
We make progress in the art of vision, and this time it is I who discover a Napoleon with his marshals on the cupola of the dome of the Hôtel des Invalides. When one comes from Montparnasse to the Boulevard des Invalides, one sees above the Rue Oudinot the cupola, the corbels, and cornices of the substructure of the cupola displayed in the full light of the setting sun, and apparently assuming human forms which appear more or less distant according to the point of observation from which they are viewed. There are Napoleon, Bernadotte, Berthier, and my friend copies them, "after nature."
"How would you explain this phenomenon?" he asks.
"Explain? Has one ever explained anything by replacing one heap of words with another heap of words?"
"You don't think, then, that the architect has worked according to a hidden plan?"
"Listen, my friend. Jules Mansard, who built the dome in 1706, could not well have foreseen the silhouette of Napoleon who was born in 1769. That is a sufficient answer!"
Often I have dreams at night, and these dreams prognosticate my future, warn me against dangers, and reveal to me secrets. For instance, a long-deceased friend appears to me in a dream, and shows me a piece of money of uncommon size. On my asking where this remarkable piece came from, he answers, "From America," and disappears.
The next day I receive a letter from America from a friend whom I had heard nothing of for twenty years, informing me that an order in connection with the Chicago Exhibition had been following me in vain all over Europe. It carried with it an honorarium of 12,000 francs, an enormous sum for me in my desperate circumstances, which I could very easily find use for. This 12,000 francs would have secured my future, and no one besides myself would have guessed that the loss of this money was a punishment for an evil deed which I had committed out of anger at the treachery of a literary colleague.
In another dream of wider significance I saw Jonas Lie,[2]with a gilt bronze clock curiously ornamented. Some days later, when I went to walk on the Boulevard St. Michel, a watch-maker's shop-window attracted my attention. "Jonas Lie's clock!" I exclaimed aloud.
It was indeed the same. It was crowned by a celestial globe on which two female figures leaned; the works were supported by four pillars, and on the globe a date-indicator pointed to the 13th of August. In a future chapter I will explain what the fateful 13th of August brought with it. This and other occurrences took place during my stay in the Hôtel Orfila between 6th February and 19th July, 1896. Concurrently with them a larger adventure pursued its often interrupted course till, with my exit from the hotel, a new section of my life began.
Spring has returned; the valley of tears and sighs under my window is green and blossoming. Foliage hides the bare ground and its unsightliness. The Gehenna has turned into a Vale of Sharon full of lilies, lilacs, and acacias. I feel very melancholy, but the merry laughter of the girls who play unseen beneath the trees, reaches me and rouses me again to life. Life hurries by and old age approaches: Wife, children, home, dispersed and wrecked; without is spring, within is autumn.
The Book of Job and the Lamentations of Jeremiah comfort me, for, at any rate, there is a certain resemblance between Job's lot and mine. Am I not smitten with incurable boils? Am I not visited with poverty and forsaken by my friends? "I go blackened, but not by the sun; I am a brother to dragons and a companion to ostriches; my skin is black and falleth from me, and my bones are burned with heat. My harp is turned to mourning, and my pipe unto the voice of them that weep."
Thus Job. And Jeremiah with two words fathoms the depth of my sadness: "I forgat prosperity."
In this mood I sit one oppressive afternoon bent over my work, when, all of a sudden, behind the foliage of the garden in front of me, I hear the playing of a piano. Like a war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, I prick up my ears, straighten myself, and in a great state of excitement struggle for breath. Someone is playing Schumann'sAufschwung; and what is more,heis playing—he, my Russian friend, my pupil who called me "Father," because he owed all his culture to me, my assistant who called me "Master" and kissed my hands, whose life began where mine ended. He has come from Vienna to Paris to ruin me, as he ruined me in Vienna—and why? Because Fate has arranged that his present wife, before he knew her, was my sweetheart. Was it my fault that matters so fell out? Surely not, and yet he hated me with a deadly hatred, hindered my plays from being accepted, wove intrigues, and deprived me of the barest means of subsistence. Then, in a fit of rage, I reversed the spear and struck him, indeed, in such a brutal and cowardly way, that it made me feel like a murderer. The fact that he has come to kill me comforts me, for death alone can deliver me from my pangs of conscience.
It was he, then, who lurked behind those letters with false addresses which I always saw near the porter's lodge. Well, let him strike! I will not defend myself. For he is right, and my life is nothing to me. He continues to play theAufschwung, which no one can play so well. He plays invisible behind the green wall, and his magic harmonies rise above its blossoming creepers like butterflies flying towards the sun.
But why is he playing? Is it to inform me of his coming to frighten me and drive me to flight? Perhaps I shall find out in the restaurant where the other Russians have long been talking about the arrival of their countryman.
I go for my evening meal there, and already at the doorway encounter hostile glances. The whole company, informed of my conflict with the Russian, has turned against me. In order to disarm them, I open fire myself.
"Popoffsky is in Paris?" I ask.
"No, not yet," one of them answers.
"Yes," says another, "he has been seen in the office of theMercure de France."
They disagree with each other, and at the end I am as wise as before, but I pretend to believe all I am told. But the obvious enmity with which I am regarded in the restaurant makes me swear not to go there again. I am sorry, for some of them were really congenial to me. Thus, once more, this cursed enemy drives me into loneliness and exile. My hatred against him is again aroused, and torments and poisons me. I don't look forward to death now! Shall the hand of an inferior man crush me? The humiliation for me and the honour for him would be too great. I will accept the challenge and defend myself. In order to obtain clear information I go to find a Danish painter, a friend of Popoffsky, in the Rue de la Santé behind the Val de Grâce. Six weeks before he had come to Paris, and, although formerly a friend of mine, had at our first meeting greeted me in almost a hostile way. The next day, however, he visited me, invited me to his studio, and said so many kind things to me that I could not help doubting the genuineness of his friendship. When I asked him about Popoffsky, he answered evasively, but confirmed the rumour of his being about to come shortly to Paris.
"In order to murder me," I added.
"Yes; take care!"
On the morning on which I wished to return the Dane's visit, by a curious chance I found my way barred by an enormous Danish dog, which reposed in all its hideousness on the ground of the courtyard. For a moment I hesitated, then I turned back, and on arriving at home thanked the powers for their warning, for I had certainly escaped some unknown danger.
Some days afterwards, when I wished to repeat my visit, on the threshold of the open door there sat a child with a playing-card in its hand. I glanced at the card superstitiously; it was the ten of spades. "They are playing an evil game in this house," I said to myself, and turned back again.
In the evening, after the scene in the restaurant, I was almost determined to carry out my plan, in spite of dog and card, but fate willed it otherwise. In the restaurant of the Lilas brewery I met my man. He was delighted to see me, and we sat down on the terrace. We recalled our common experiences in Vienna; he seemed to be the same good friend that he was before, narrated his stories with enthusiasm, forgot our former small disagreements, and confessed the truth of some things which he had before publicly denied. Suddenly he appeared to remember his duty or some promises which he had given; he became taciturn, cold, hostile, and obviously vexed that he had been betrayed into disclosing secrets. He answered my direct question whether Popoffsky was in Paris with a brief "No," which was plainly false, and we parted.
Here I must remark that the Dane had been Frau Popoffsky's lover before me, and that from the time she had given him up on my account, he cherished a grudge against me. Now he played the rôle of family friend with Popoffsky, who knew nothing of his former relation with his wife.
Schumann'sAufschwungsounds over the deep-leaved trees, but the musician remains invisible and leaves me doubtful as before as to the exact house in which he lives. For a whole month the music continues from four to five in the afternoon.
One morning, as I go down the Rue de Fleurs, in order to comfort myself by looking at my rainbow in the dyer's window, and enter the Jardin de Luxembourg, which, with all its trees in blossom, is as beautiful as a fairy-tale, I find on the ground two dry twigs which have been broken off by the wind. They formed the two Greek letters "p" and "y," the first and last letters of Popoffsky. Hewas, then, persecuting me, and the powers wished to guard me against the danger. I felt uneasy in spite of these signs of grace from the unseen. I invoked the protection of Providence, I read the imprecatory psalms, I hated my enemy with an Old Testament hatred, while I lacked the courage to use the black magic which I had recently studied. "Make haste O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and put to confusion that desire my hurt. Let them be turned back as a reward of their shame that say, 'Aha! Aha!'"
This prayer seemed to me at that time right, and the mercy inculcated in the New Testament like cowardice. To what unknown power my iniquitous prayer found its way I do not know. The sequel of this narrative will, at any rate, show that it was heard.
May13th.—A letter from my wife. She has learned from the papers that a Mr. S. is about to journey to the North Pole in an air-balloon. She feels in despair about it, confesses to me her unalterable love, and adjures me to give up this idea, which is tantamount to suicide. I enlighten her regarding her mistake. It is a cousin of mine who is risking his life in order to make a great scientific discovery.
May14th.—Last night I had a dream. A head which had been cut off was set on the trunk of a man who looked like an actor come down in the world through drink. The head began to speak. I was frightened, and knocked my bed-screen down while I, as I thought, pushed a policeman before me to protect me from the madman's attack.
May17th and the following days.—The glass of absinthe at six o'clock, and the terrace of the Brewery of Lilas behind the statue of Marshal Ney, are my only remaining sin and delight. There, after finishing the day's work, when soul and body are exhausted, I refresh myself with the green drink, a cigarette, theTemps, and theDébuts. How sweet is life after all, when the mist of a mild intoxication casts its veil over the miseries of existence. Probably the powers envy me this hour of a visionary happiness, for from this evening onwards it is disturbed by a series of annoyances which cannot be attributed to chance. On May 17th, I find my place, which has been reserved for me daily for nearly two years, occupied; all the other chairs are also taken. Deeply annoyed, I have to go to another café.
May18th.—My old corner in Lilas is again vacant, and I am again under my chestnut behind the Marshal, feeling contented, even happy. My well-concocted absinthe is there, my cigarette lighted, and theTempsspread out. Then a drunken man passes; a hateful-looking fellow, whose mischievous, contemptuous air annoys me. His face is red, his nose blue, his eyes malicious. I taste my absinthe, and feel happy not to be like this sot.... There! I don't know how, but my glass is upset and empty. Without sufficient money to order another, I pay for this and leave the café. Certainly it was again the Evil One who played me this trick.
May19th.—I don't venture to go to the café.
May20th.—I have slunk round the terrace of the Lilas, and at last found my corner unoccupied. One must fight the evil spirits and begin the war oneself. The absinthe is made, the cigarette glows, and theTempshas important news. Then (I speak the truth, reader), a chimney of the café over my head takes fire! There is a universal panic. I remain sitting, but a stronger will than mine directs a cloud of soot with such a good aim on me, that two large flakes settle on my glass. Disconcerted, but as unbelieving and sceptical as ever, I depart.
June1st.—After long abstinence, the longing for my chestnut again awakes. My table is occupied, and I sit down at a vacant one standing somewhat apart. Then there comes a middle-class family, and sits near me. There seems to be no end of them. Women push against my chair, children do their little businesses before my eyes, young men take away my matches without asking leave. Thus I sit in the midst of a noisy, shameless throng, but do not waver nor yield. Then occurs something which, without any doubt, shows the skilful hand of the unseen, for there is no room for suspecting these people to whom I am entirely unknown.
A young man lays with an unmistakable gesture a sou on my table. A stranger, and alone among a crowd of people, I let it happen, but, blind with anger, I seek for an explanation.
He gives me a sou, as if to a beggar! Beggar! that is the dagger which I drive into my breast. Beggar! for thou deservest nothing, and——
The waiter offers me a more comfortable place, and I leave the money lying. What a disgrace! He brings it after me, and informs me politely that the young man had found it under my table, and thought it was mine. I feel ashamed, and in order to calm my anger, order another absinthe.
The absinthe comes, and I feel quite comfortable, when a pestilential smell of ammonia almost stifles me. Again a miracle or some evil purpose! An escape-pipe flows out at the edge of the pavement, exactly where my seat is. I begin to understand that the good spirits wish to heal me of a sin, which at last leads to the madhouse. Blessed be Providence which has saved me!
May25th.—In spite of the regulations of the house which exclude women, a family has taken up its quarters next my room. For a day and a night crying babies afford me much pleasure, and remind me of the good old times when I was between thirty and forty and life was pleasantest.
May26th.—The family quarrel together and the children howl. How similar it is, and yet how pleasant it is for me—now!
May29th.—A letter from the children of my first marriage informs that a telegram had come for them bidding them to be present in Stockholm at the farewell feast which was to celebrate my departure for the North Pole. They understand nothing about it, and I just as little. What a fatal error!
June2nd.—In the Avenue de l'Observatoire I find two pebbles shaped exactly like hearts. In the evening, in the garden of a Russian painter, I found a third heart of the same size, exactly like the two others. The playing of Schumann'sAufschwunghas ceased, and I am again calm.
June9th.—I visit the Danish painter in the Rue de la Santé. The great dog has disappeared; the entrance is free. We go to dine on a terrace in the Boulevard Port-Royal. My friend is cold and uncomfortable, and as he has forgotten his overcoat I lay mine over his shoulders. At first this quiets him; he feels himself dominated by me, and does not struggle against it. We are agreed on all points; he does not venture any more to oppose me. He admits that Popoffsky is a scoundrel, and that all my misfortunes are due to him. Suddenly a strange fit of nervousness takes hold of him; he trembles like a medium under the influence of the hypnotiser, gets excited, shakes off the overcoat, stops eating, lays his fork on one side, stands up and goes off. What is the meaning of it? Does he feel my coat to be a Nessus robe? Has my nervous fluid become stored up in it, and through its opposite polarity subjugated him? Does Ezekiel, chap. xiii., ver. 18, refer to something similar? "Woe to you that sew pillows upon all armholes, and make kerchiefs for the heads of persons of every stature, to catch souls.... I will tear your kerchiefs, and I will deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall no more be in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the Lord."
Have I become a wizard without knowing it?
June7th.—I visited my Danish friend in order to look at his pictures. When I arrived he seemed well and cheerful, but after half an hour he had a nervous attack, which increased so much that he had to undress and go to bed. What was the matter with him? Had he a bad conscience?
June14th, Sunday.—In the Jardin du Luxembourg I found a fourth heart-shaped pebble, like the three former ones. The stone has a piece of gold tinsel adhering to it; altogether it remains a puzzle, but seems to foreshadow something. I compare the four stones together before the open window, as the bells of St. Sulpice begin to ring; then the great bell of Notre-Dame commences, and through these usual sounds, there comes a heavy solemn peal, as though it issued from the bowels of the earth. I ask the waiter who brings my letters what it is. He says, "The great bell of the Church Sacré Cœur of Montmartre."
It is then the festival of the Sacred Heart? And I contemplate these four hard stone hearts, curiously moved by this striking coincidence.
In the direction of Notre-Dame des Champs I hear a cuckoo, and yet it is impossible; or have my ears become so extra-sensitive that they can hear as far as the wood of Meudon?
June 15th.—I go to the city to change a cheque into bank-notes and gold. To my astonishment, the Quai Voltaire sways under my feet; certainly the Carrousel Bridge trembles under the weight of the carts. But to-day, this movement continues past the Tuileries to the Avenue de l'Opéra. There is always vibration in a town, but in order to notice it one must have very sensitive nerves.
The other side of the river is, for us dwellers in Montparnasse, a foreign world. It is nearly a year since I visited the Lyons Bank, or the Café de la Régence. On the Boulevard des Italiens, I felt homesick, and I hurried back to the river, where the sight of the Rue des Saints Pères revived me. Near the Church St. Germain des Prés I met a funeral, and after that, two colossal Madonnas, which were being carried on a cart. One of them, with folded hands and eyes directed heavenwards, made a deep impression on me.
June16th.—On the Boulevard St. Michel I bought a paper-weight adorned with a glass globe containing the Madonna of Lourdes in her famous grotto; before her kneels a veiled woman. When I place the figure in the sun, it casts strange shadows. On the back of the grotto the plaster has accidentally formed a head of Christ, though evidently unintended by the artist.
June18th.—My Danish friend rushes in, in a state of excitement and trembling all over, into my room. Popoffsky has been arrested in Vienna on the charge of having murdered his paramour and two illegitimate children. After I recover from the first surprise, and my first feeling of sincere sympathy for a man who at any rate had once been my intimate friend, a deep peace settles on my spirit, which had been tortured for months with long-continued threats. Unable to conceal my real selfishness, I give free vent to my feelings. It is dreadful, and yet I am relieved when I think of the danger from which I have escaped.
What was his motive for the crime? We conjecture as a reason the jealousy which his lawful wife felt against the illegitimate family, and the expense which they involved. Perhaps also....
"What?"
"Perhaps his bloodthirsty instincts have recently been able to find no outlet in Paris, and have sought for satisfaction in some other way, no matter upon whom." To myself I say: "Was it possible that my earnest prayers had averted the dagger, and turned it against the murderer himself?" Then, giving up guessing, I conclude magnanimously like a victor: "Let us at any rate save our friend's literary reputation. I will write an essay on his merits as an author; you draw a flattering portrait, and we will send both to theRevue Blanche."
In the Dane's studio (the dog guards it no more) we stand and contemplate a picture of Popoffsky painted two years ago. It represents only his head, with a cloud below it. Underneath are a pair of cross-bones like one sees on tombstones. The decapitated head makes us shudder, and the dream of May 14th steals into my memory like a ghost. "How did you come to think," I asked, "of representing him with a head only?"
"That is hard to say; but there seemed to be a fate brooding over this fine mind, with marks of genius, which dreamed of fame without being willing to pay the price for it. Life lets us choose one of two things—the laurel or luxury."
"You have at last discovered that!"
June23rd,—During these last days since the news of the Russian's arrest, a fresh disquiet seizes me. It appears to me as though someone somewhere were meddling with my destiny, and I tell the Danish painter my suspicion that the hate of the imprisoned Russian makes me suffer like the electric fluid from a dynamo.
There are moments in which I foresee that my stay in Paris will soon be at an end, and that a revolution in my circumstances is at hand.
The weathercock on the cross of Notre-Dame des Champs seems to me to flap its wings as though it wished to fly northwards. Anticipating my speedy departure, I hastily conclude my studies in the Jardin des Plantes. A zinc bath in which I make experiments in alchemy shows on its inner sides a landscape formed by the evaporation of iron salts. I understand it is a presage, but I cannot guess where this landscape is. Hills covered with forests of firs; lying between them, plains covered with fruit trees and cornfields; everything indicates the neighbourhood of a river. One of the hills with precipices of stratified formation is crowned with the ruins of a stately castle. I cannot make out more, but I shall not remain long in uncertainty.
June 20th.—We receive an invitation from the head of the scientific occultists, the editor of theInitiation. As the doctor and I arrived at Marolles en Brie we received three pieces of bad news: A weasel had killed the ducks; a servant girl was ill; the third I forget.
On the evening of our return to Paris, I read in a paper the famous history of the haunted house in Valence en Brie. Brie? I begin to fear that the occupants of my hotel will become suspicious, hear of my excursion to Brie, and in consequence of my experiments in alchemy suppose that I have set on foot that humbug or witchcraft.
I have bought myself a rosary. Why? It is pretty, and the evil spirits fear the Cross; besides, I don't worry any more about the motives of my actions. I act, as the humour takes me, and life is much more interesting. There is a sudden change as regards the Popoffsky case. His friend the Dane begins to doubt his having committed the crime, and says the accusation against him was refuted at the inquest. The publishing of my article is put off, and I feel as cold towards him as before. At the same time the monstrous dog reappears—a hint for me to be on my guard.
As I am writing in the afternoon at the table near my window, a thunderstorm bursts. The first drops of rain fall on my manuscript and blot it in such a way that from the obliterated letters the word "Alp"[3]is formed, and also a blot in the shape of an enormous face. I preserve this; it resembles the Japanese god of thunder as portrayed in theAtmosphèreof Camille Flammarion.
June 28th.—I have seen my wife in a dream; her front teeth were missing. She gave me a guitar, which looked like a Danube boat. This dream threatened me with imprisonment.
In the afternoon I rub together on a piece of paper quicksilver, tin, sulphur, and chlorate of ammonia. When I took off the mixture, the paper retained the impression of a face, which had an extraordinary resemblance to that of my wife in the dream of the past night.
July 1st.—I expect an eruption, an earthquake, a thunderbolt somewhere or other. Nervous as a horse when wolves are near, I scent danger, and pack my box ready for Hight without being able to decide on it. The Russian has been liberated from prison for want of proofs; his friend the Dane has become my enemy. The customers in the restaurant persecute me. We had our last meal in the courtyard on account of the heat. The table was placed between the dustbin and the lavatory. Over the dustbin hung the picture of the crucified woman by my former American friend. They had revenged themselves so severely upon him that he had disappeared without paying his debts. Near the table the Russians have placed a statuette, a warrior with the conventional scythe, possibly to frighten me! A young fellow belonging to the house goes behind my back to the lavatory with the thinly concealed purpose of annoying me. The court is as narrow as a mineshaft, and admits no sunlight over the high walls. The women who live in the different storeys make obscene remarks over our heads. Domestic servants come with their baskets full of rubbish in order to empty them into the dustbin. It is hell itself! Moreover, my two neighbours, notoriously immoral characters, try, with their disgusting talk, to entangle me in a quarrel.
Why am I here? Because loneliness compels me to seek human society and to hear human voices. Just as my mental suffering reaches its highest pitch, I discover some pansies blooming in the tiny flower-bed. They shake their heads as though they wished to warn me of a danger, and one of them with a child's face and large eyes signals to me, "Go away!" I rise and pay; as I go out the young fellow mentioned above greets me with concealed contempt, which irritates me. But I remain quiet.
I feel pity for myself and shame for the others. I forgive the offenders as though they were demons, who must now fulfil their duty. Meanwhile, the disfavour of the powers is all too obvious, and I begin in my room to total up the debit and credit side. Hitherto, and that was my comfort, I have never been able to bow myself before others, but now, crushed by the hand of the invisible, I am anxious to own myself wrong, and fear lays hold upon me when I carefully think over my behaviour during the last weeks. My conscience exacts my confession ruthlessly and pitilessly. I had sinned through conceit, through ὕβρις, the one sin which the gods do not forgive. Encouraged by the friendship of Dr. Popus, who had praised my experiments, I imagined that I had solved the riddle of the Sphinx. An imitator of Orpheus, I assumed it as my rôle to reanimate nature, which had been done to death by the scientists. Confident of the favour of the powers, I flattered myself that I was invincible as regards my foes, and forgot the most ordinary rules of modesty.
This is the right point at which to insert the history of my secret friend who has played a decisive rôle in my life as mentor, counsellor, comforter, judge, and, not least, as a reliable helper in various times of need. As early as 1890 he wrote to me about a book which I then published. He had found points of contact between my ideas and those of the theosophists, and wished to hear my opinion of the Occult Doctrine and the priestess of Isis, Madame Blavatsky. The aggressive tone of his letter annoyed me, and I did not conceal this annoyance in my answer. Four years later I published myAntibarbarus, and received at the most critical juncture of my life a second letter from this unknown friend, in which, in an elevated and almost prophetic style, he foretold for me a future fraught with suffering and glory. At the same time he explained to me that he had resumed this correspondence, because he guessed that I was just now in the throes of a spiritual crisis in which a word of comfort might be opportune. Finally, he offered me material aid, which I, jealous of my miserable independence, declined.
In the autumn of 1895 I resumed the correspondence by offering him my natural history studies for publication. From that time we kept up the most intimate and friendly correspondence, with the exception of a small disagreement which occurred, when he once took upon himself to instruct me in an insulting way about matters which I knew very well, and preached to me proudly about my want of modesty. After we had made it up again, I imparted to him all my observations, and gave him more of my confidence than was perhaps wise. I confessed to this man, whom I had never seen, everything, and let him admonish me seriously, for I regarded him more as an idea than a person; he was for me a messenger of Providence, my good angel.
Then there occurred between us a strong difference of opinion which led to very lively discussions, without, however, leading to any bitterness. As a theosophist, he preached "Karma,"i.e., an abstract total of human destinies which balance each other so as to result in a kind of Nemesis. He was accordingly a champion of the mechanical view of the universe, a representative of the so-called materialistic school. To me, on the other hand, the powers had revealed themselves as concrete, living, individual personalities, who guide the course of the world and the destinies of men, as self-conscious entities or, as the theologians say, as "hypostases." The second difference of opinion was regarding the denying and putting to death of one's own self, which always seemed to me perfectly foolish, and seems so still.
Everything,i.e., the little which I know, goes back to the Ego as its central point. Not the cultus, indeed, but the culture of this Ego seems, therefore, the highest and ultimate aim of existence. My final and constant answer to his objections, therefore, was: "The killing of the Ego is self-murder."
Moreover, before whom should I bow myself? Before the theosophists? Never! But before the Eternal, the Powers, Providence, I seek to subdue my evil propensities daily as much as possible. To combat for the preservation of my ego, against all influence which a sect or party, from love of ruling, may bring to bear upon me,thatis my duty enjoined on me by conscience; the guide which the grace of my divine protector has given me.
Nevertheless, because of the qualities of this unseen friend, whom I felt drawn to love and admire, I put up with his admonitions when he often addressed me in a presumptuous way as his inferior. I always answered him, but did not conceal from him my dislike for theosophy.
Finally, however—it was during the Popoffsky episode,—he assumed such a domineering tone, and became so intolerable in his tyranny, that I feared he took me for a fool. He called me "Simon Magus, the necromancer," and recommended me to take Madame Blavatsky as my teacher. I wrote back to him that I had no need of the lady, and that no one had anything to teach me. Thereupon what did he threaten me with? That he would bring me back to the right path with the aid of stronger powers than mine. Then I asked him not to meddle with my destiny, which the hand of Providence had always so well protected and guided. And in order to further impress upon him my conviction by means of an example, I related to him the following incident out of my life, which has been so rich in providential occurrences, premising at the same time that by relating this very incident I feared lest I should be challenging Nemesis.
It was ten years before this time, during the most stormy period of my literary life, when I was raging against the feminist movement, which, with the exception of myself, everyone in Scandinavia supported. The heat of the conflict hurried me on, so that I so far overstepped the bounds of propriety that my countrymen considered me mad.
I was just then staying with my wife and the children of my first marriage in Bavaria, when I received a letter from a friend of my youth inviting me and my children to stop with him for a year, he made no mention of my wife. This letter, with its affected style, its corrections and omissions, seemed to betray some hesitation on the part of the writer in the choice of the reasons which he alleged for his invitation. As I suspected some trap, I declined the offer in a few non-committal polite phrases.
Two years later, after my first divorce, I went to him of my own accord and found him living on a little island off the coast of the Baltic Sea as an inspector of customs. His reception of me was friendly, but his whole manner embarrassed and equivocal, and our conversation was more like a police examination. After giving a wakeful night's consideration to the matter, I understood it. This man, whose self-love I had wounded in one of my novels, in spite of his display of sympathy, was not really my well-wisher. An absolute tyrant, he wanted to interfere with my destiny, to tame and subdue me, in order to show me his superiority.
Quite unscrupulous in his choice of means, he tormented me for a week long, poisoned my mind with slanders and stories invented to suit every occasion, but did it so clumsily that I was more and more convinced that he wished to have me incarcerated as a person of unsound mind.
I offered no special resistance, and left it to my good fortune to liberate me at the right time.
My apparent submission won my executioner's favour, and there alone, in the midst of the sea, hated by his neighbours and subordinates, he yielded to his need to confide in someone. He told me, with incredible frankness for a man of fifty, that his sister during the past winter had gone out of her mind, and in a fit of frenzy had destroyed all her savings. The next morning he told me, further, that his brother was in a lunatic asylum on the mainland.
I asked myself, "Is that why he wants to see me confined in one, in order to avenge himself on fate?" After he had thus related to me his misfortunes, I won his complete confidence, so that I was able to leave the island, and hire a house on a neighbouring one, where my children joined me. Four weeks later a letter summoned me to my "friend," whom I found quite broken down because his brother in a fit of mania had shattered his skull. I comforted my executioner, and his wife whispered to me with tears that she had long feared lest the same fate should overtake her husband. A year later the newspapers announced that my friend's eldest brother had taken his life under circumstances which seemed to indicate that he was out of his mind. Thus three distinct blows descended on the head of this man who had wished to play with lightning.
"What a strange chance!" people will say. And stranger, and more ominous still, every time that I relate this history, I am punished for doing so.
The fierce July heat broods over the city; life is intolerable, and everything is malodorous. I expect a catastrophe. In the street I find a scrap of paper with the word "marten" written on it; in another street a similar scrap with the word "vulture" written by the same hand. Popoffsky certainly has a resemblance to a marten as his wife has to a vulture. Have they come to Paris to kill me? He, the murderer, is capable of everything after he has murdered wife and children.
The perusal of the delightful bookLa joie de mourirarouses in me the wish to quit the world. In order to learn to know the boundary between life and death, I lie on the bed, uncork the flask containing cyanide of potassium, and let its poisonous perfume stream out. The man with the scythe approaches softly and voluptuously, but at the last moment someone enters or something else happens; either an attendant enters under some pretext, or a wasp flies in through the window.
The powers deny me the only joy left, and I bow to their will.
At the beginning of July the house is empty; the students have gone for their holidays. All the more is my curiosity aroused by a stranger who has taken the room on that side of mine where my writing-table is placed. The Unknown never speaks; he appears to be occupied in writing on the other side of the wall which divides us. Curiously enough, whenever I move my chair, he moves his also, and, in general, imitates all my movements as though he wished to annoy me. Thus it goes on for three days. On the fourth day I make the following observations: If I prepare to go to sleep, he also prepares to go to sleep in the next room; when I lie down in bed, I hear him lie down on the bed by my wall. I hear him stretch himself out parallel with me; he turns over the pages of a book, then puts out the lamp, breathes loud, turns himself on his side, and goes to sleep. He apparently occupies the rooms on both sides of me, and it is unpleasant to be beset on two sides at once. Absolutely alone, I take my mid-day meal in my room, and I eat so little that the waiter pities me. For eight days I have not heard the sound of my own voice, which begins to grow feeble for want of exercise. I have n't a sou left, and my tobacco and postage stamps run out. Then I rally my will power for a last attempt: Iwillmake gold, by the dry process. I manage to borrow some money and procure the necessary apparatus: an oven, smelting-saucepans, wood-coals, bellows, and tongs. The heat is terrific and, like a workman in a smithy, I sweat before the open fire, stripped to the waist. But sparrows have built their nests in the chimney, and smoke pours out of it into the room. I feel like going mad over this first attempt, my head-aches, and the frustration of my efforts; for everything goes wrong. I have smelted the mass of metal in the fire and look inside the saucepan. The borax has formed within it a death's-head with two glowing eyes which seem to pierce my soul with uncanny irony. Not a grain of gold is there, and I give up all further effort. I resume my seat, and read the Bible just where I happen to open it: "None calleth to mind, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also, I have baked bread upon the coals thereof, I have roasted flesh and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth forth the earth; who is with me? that frustrateth the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish."
For the first time I despair of my scientific experiments. If they are all folly, then I have sacrificed my happiness and that of my wife and children to a phantom. Alas for my delusion! There is a gaping abyss between my parting from my family and this moment. A year and a half has elapsed, and so many painful days and nights have been spent for nothing. But no! it cannot be, it is not so.
Have I lost myself in a dark wood? The good spirit has guided me on the right way to the island of the blessed, but Satan tempts me. I am punished again. I sink relaxed on my scat, an unwonted depression weighs upon my spirits. A magnetic fluid streams from the wall, and sleep nearly overcomes me. I pull myself together, and stand up, in order to go out. As I pass through the passage, I hear two voices whispering in the room adjoining mine. Why are they whispering? In order that I may not overhear them. I go through the Rue d'Assas to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I drag myself wearily along, feeling lame from my loins to my feet, and sink on a seat behind the group of Adam and his family.
I am poisoned! That is my first thought. And Popoffsky, who has murdered his wife and children with poisonous gases, is here. He has copied the famous experiment of Pettenkofer, and discharged a stream of gas through the wall. What shall I do? Go to the police? No! for if I can adduce no proofs they will shut me up as a lunatic.
Væ soli!Woe to the solitary, the sparrow upon the housetop! Never was my misery greater, and I weep like a forsaken child that fears the dark.
In the evening I dare not remain sitting at my table for fear of a new attack, and lie on the bed without venturing to go to sleep. The night comes and my lamp is lit. Then I see outside, on the wall opposite to my window, the shadow of a human shape, whether a man or a woman, I cannot say, but it seems to be a woman. When I stand up, to ascertain which it is, the blind is noisily pulled down; then I hear the Unknown enter the room, which is near my bed, and all is silent. For three hours I lie awake with open eyes to which sleep refuses to come; then a feeling of uneasiness takes possession of me; I am exposed to an electric current which passes to and fro between the two adjoining rooms. The nervous tension increases, and, in spite of my resistance, I cannot remain in bed, so strong is my conviction: "They are murdering me; I will not let myself be murdered." I go out in order to seek the attendant in his box at the end of the corridor, but alas! he is not there. They have got him to go away; he is a silent accomplice, and I am betrayed!
I go down the stairs, and hasten through the corridors in order to rouse the director of thepension. With a presence of mind, of which I would not have thought myself capable, I tell him that I have a sudden attack of indisposition, caused by the evaporations from my chemicals, and ask for another room for the night. Thanks to a wrathful Providence, the only vacant room is directly under that of my enemy. I open the window and inhale full draughts of the fresh air of a starry night. Above the roofs of the Rue d'Assas, and the Rue de Madame, the Great Bear and Pole-star are visible. To the North, then! I take the omen!
As I draw back the curtain of the alcove where my bed is, I hear my enemy overhead get out of bed and place some heavy object in a box which he locks. He is concealing something then! Perhaps the electric machine.
The next morning, which is a Sunday, I pack up and give out that I am going to the seacoast. I tell the coachman to drive to the St. Lazare Station, but when we get opposite the Odeon, I alter the route and bid him drive to the Rue de la Clef, near the Jardin des Plantes. I wish to remain here incognito, in order to complete my studies before my departure for Sweden.