[1]L'extériorisation de la sensibilité.
[1]L'extériorisation de la sensibilité.
[2]Famous Norwegian novelist.
[2]Famous Norwegian novelist.
[3]Nightmare.
[3]Nightmare.
At length a pause ensues in my sufferings. For hours at a time I sit in the open space before the summer-house, watch the flowers, and think over the recent events. The peace of mind, which I find after my flight, convinces me that I have not been suffering from the delusions of disease, but have been persecuted by real enemies. I work during the day and sleep quietly at night. Delivered from the squalor of my former residence, I feel myself rejuvenated among the roses of this garden—the favourite flower of my youth. The Jardin des Plantes, this wonder of Paris unknown to the Parisians themselves, has become my park. This epitome of creation confined within a narrow circuit, this Noah's Ark, this Paradise Regained in which I wander without danger among wild beasts—it is too much happiness. Beginning with stones, I proceed to the vegetable and animal kingdoms, till I come to man, and behind man I discover the Creator—the great Artist who develops as he creates, sets on fool designs which He rejects later on, resumes plans which have failed, and completes and multiplies primitive forms endlessly. All is the work of His hand. Often in the discovery of methods He makes enormous leaps, and then Science comes and ascertains the extent of the gaps and the missing links, and imagines that it has found the intermediary forms which have disappeared.
As I now consider myself safe from my persecutors, I send my address to the Pension Orfila in order to resume my correspondence with the outer world, but no sooner have I lifted the mask of my incognito than my peace is interrupted. All kinds of things disquiet me, and my former discomfort returns.
To begin with, articles whose use I cannot understand are being stored away in the room which adjoins mine on the ground-floor, and which hitherto was vacant of furniture. An old gentleman, with grey, malicious eyes, carries empty boxes, strips of metal, and other mysterious objects into it. At the same time the noises over my head recommence. They file and hammer as though they were constructing some infernal machine.
Moreover, the landlady, who at first appeared pleased at my taking up my abode here, alters her demeanour; she tries to ferret out my affairs, and vexes me by her manner of greeting me. Besides this, the lodger who occupies the first floor above me, leaves the house. He was a quiet old gentleman, whose heavy footfall was familiar to me. In his place comes a reserved-looking tenant who has lived in the house for years. He has not changed his lodgings but only his room. Why?
The servant-maid who looks after my room, and brings my meals, has a serious air and casts sympathetic glances at me.
All at once a wheel begins to turn over my head, and continues to do so the whole day long. I am condemned to death! That is my firm conviction. By whom? By the Russians, the Pietists, Catholics, Jesuits, Theosophists? As what?—A wizard or practiser of black arts? Or perhaps it is by the police as an anarchist? That is a very plausible pretext for removing personal enemies.
At the moment that I write this, I do not know what was the real nature of the events of that July night when death threatened me, but I will not forget that lesson as long as I live.
If the initiated believe that I was then exposed to a plot woven by human hands, let me tell them that I feel anger against no one, for I know now that another stronger Hand, unknown to them, guided those hands against their will.
On the other hand, if there was no plot, I must suppose that my own imagination conjured up these chastising spirits for my own punishment. We shall see in the sequel how far this supposition is probable.
On the morning of my last day (as I suppose) I rise in a resigned frame of mind, which might be called religious; I have no more ties binding me to life. I have put my papers in order, written necessary letters, and burnt what had to be burnt. Then I go to bid farewell to the world in the Jardin des Plantes.
The Swedish block of lodestone before the mineralogical museum gives me a greeting from my native land. I greet the acacias, the cedars of Lebanon, and the monuments of great epochs when botany was still a living science. I buy bread and cherries for my old friends. The old bear knows me well, for I am the only one who brings him cherries morning and evening. I give bread to the young elephant, who spits in my face after he has eaten it—the young, faithless ingrate!
Farewell, ye vultures who had to exchange the sky for a dirty cage! Farewell, bison and behemoth, thou chained demon! Farewell, ye loving pair of sea-birds whom wedded love consoles for the loss of ocean and its wide horizon! Farewell, stones, plants, flowers, trees, butterflies, birds, snakes, all creatures of a good God! And you great men, Bernadin de Saint-Pierre, Linnæus, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Haüy, whose names shine in gold on the front of the temple—farewell! but we meet again. So I part from this earthly Paradise, and Séraphita's noble words come to my mind, "Adieu, pauvre terre! adieu!"
When I re-enter the hotel garden, I become aware of the presence of a man, who must have come in my absence. I do not see him, but feel him. What increases my confusion is the visible alteration which the adjoining room has undergone. A cloth hung over a rope obviously conceals something. On the mantelpiece are metal projections isolated by wooden panels, and on each there lies a photograph album or some other book, in order to give these diabolical machines, which I am inclined to think are accumulators, an innocuous appearance. Moreover, on a roof in the Rue Censier, exactly opposite my summer-house, I see two workmen. I cannot make out what they are doing, but they seem to have an eye on my glass-door and are busy with objects which I cannot distinguish.
Why do I not escape? Because I am too proud, and must bear the inevitable. I therefore prepare myself for the night. I take a bath, and am especially careful to wash my feet, for my mother has told me when a child, that there is something disgraceful in dirty feet. I shave and perfume myself, and put on the underclothes which I bought three years ago in Vienna for my wedding—the toilet of a man condemned to die. I read the psalms in the Bible in which David invokes the wrath of the Eternal upon his enemies. I do not read the penitential psalms. I have no right to remorse, for it is not I who have guided my destiny. I have never requited evil with evil, except when I had to defend myself. To be remorseful is to criticise Providence, which imposes sin on us as a suffering, in order to purify us through the disgust with which each evil deed inspires us.
The summing up of my reckoning with life is as follows: If I have sinned, on my word of honour, I have been sufficiently punished. That is certain. As to the fear of hell, I have wandered through a thousand hells, without trembling, and have experienced enough of them to feel an intense desire to depart from the vanities and false joys of this world, which I always despised. Born with a heavenly homesickness, I wept as a child over the filthiness of life, and felt strange and homeless among relations and friends. From childhood onwards I have sought for God and found the Devil. I have borne the cross of Christ in my youth, and have denied a God who delights to reign over slaves who love their tormentor.
As I let down the curtains of my glass-door, I see a number of ladies and gentlemen sitting at their champagne in the private drawing-room. They seem to be strangers just arrived this evening. But they are not a merry company; their faces are all serious, they discuss, seem to form plans, and speak in an undertone with each other, as though it were a conspiracy. To intensify my mental torture, they turn round on their chairs, and point with their fingers in the direction of my room. About ten o'clock I extinguish my lamp, and go to sleep quietly, resigned as a dying man.
I wake up. A clock strikes two; a door is fastened, and—I am out of bed, as though someone had applied an air-pump to my heart and drawn me outso. At the same time an electric stream strikes my neck, and presses me to the ground. I rise again, seize my clothes and rush, my heart beating violently, into the garden. When I have dressed myself, my first clear thought is to go to the police and have the house searched. But the front door is shut, and so is the porter's box. I grope my way on, open a door on the right, and step into the kitchen, in which a lamp is burning. I upset it, and stand in pitch darkness.
Fear restores me to my senses, and I return to my room with the thought: "If I make a mistake, I am lost." I drag a chair out into the garden, and, sitting under the starry sky, I reflect on what is happening. Am I ill? Impossible: for until I disclosed my incognito, I was quite well. Is it an attack? Yes, because I saw the preparations for it going on. For the rest, I feel better here outside in the garden beyond the power of my enemies, and my heart beats quite regularly. While reflecting thus, I hear someone cough in the room adjoining mine. It is at once answered by a low cough from the room on the other side. Doubtless it is a signal, just like the one I heard my last night in the Pension Orfila. I try to open forcibly the glass-door of the ground-floor room, but the bolt holds.
Wearied by the useless fight against invisible powers, I sink on a garden seat. Sleep has pity on me, so that under the stars of a beautiful summer night I fall asleep among the roses whispering in the warm airs of July.
The sun awakes me, and I thank Providence which has saved me from death. I pack my things, and mean to go to Dieppe to find shelter with some friends, whom I have neglected as I have all others, but who are considerate and generous towards the fallen and shipwrecked. When I ask to speak to the directress of the house, she is not visible, and sends a message to say she is unwell. I might have expected that she would be involved in the plot against me. I leave the house with a curse on the head of my knavish enemies, and call on heaven to send down fire on this den of robbers—whether rightly or wrongly, who knows? My Dieppe friends were alarmed, when they saw me mounting the hill of their town with my bag heavy with manuscripts.
"Where have you come from, poor fellow?"
"I come from death."
"I doubt it, for you look as if you had not been dug out yet."
The kind, good-hearted lady of the house takes me by the hand and leads me before a looking-glass, that I may see myself. I certainly look a pitiable object; my face blackened by smoke from the engine, my cheeks fallen in, my hair grown grey, my eyes staring wildly, and my linen dirty.
But when I was left alone in the dressing-room by my kind hostess, who treated me like a sick, deserted child, I examined my face more closely. There was an expression in my features which alarmed me. It was not fear of death or wickedness, but something else, and had I at that time known Swedenborg, he would have explained to me the impression made by the evil spirit on my soul, and the occurrences of the last weeks. Now I felt ashamed and angry with myself, and my conscience pained me on account of my ingratitude towards this family, which had proved a harbour of refuge for me, as for so many other shipwrecked voyagers. As a punishment, I shall be driven hence also by the furies. Here is a beautiful artistic home, ordered domestic economy, married happiness, with charming children, cleanness and comfort, boundless hospitality, charitable judgment, an atmosphere of beauty and goodness which dazzles me—a paradise, in short, and I in the midst of it, all like a lost soul. I see spread out before my eyes all the happiness which life can offer, and all that I have lost.
I occupy an attic room looking out on a hill where there is an asylum for old people. In the evening I observe two men looking over the wall of the institution towards our villa, and pointing at my window. The idea that I am being persecuted by means of electricity again takes possession of me.
The night between the 25th and 26th of July, 1896, comes on. We have searched together all the attic rooms near mine, and the loft itself, so as to satisfy me that no one with evil intentions could be lurking there. Only in a lumber-room an object of no significance in itself has a depressing effect upon me. It is only the skin of a polar bear used as a rug; but the gaping jaws, the threatening teeth, the sparkling eyes irritate me. Why should this creature lie just now, just there? Without taking off my clothes, I lie down on the bed, determined to wait for the fateful hour—two o'clock.
While I am reading, midnight approaches. One o'clock strikes, and the whole house is wrapped in slumber. At last two o'clock strikes! Nothing happens. Then in a dare-devil spirit, or perhaps only with the intention of making a physical experiment, I rise, open both windows, and light two candles. Then I sit at the table behind them, expose myself with bared breast as a mark, and challenge the unknown: "Attack, if you dare!"
Then I feel, at first only faintly, something like an inrush of electric fluid. I look at my compass, but it shows no sign of wavering. It is not electricity then. But the tension increases; my heart beats violently; I offer resistance, but as if by a flash of lightning my body is charged with a fluid which chokes me and depletes my blood. I rush down the stairs to the room on the ground-floor, where they have made up for me a provisional bed in case of necessity. There I lie for five minutes and collect my thoughts. Is it radiating electricity? No; for the compass has not been affected. Is it a diseased state of mind induced by fear of the fatal hour of two o'clock? No; for I have still the courage to defy attacks, but why must I light the candles and attract the mysterious fluid? In this labyrinth of questioning I find no answer, and try at last to go to sleep, but a new discharge of electricity strikes me like a cyclone, forces me to rise from bed, and the chase begins afresh. I hide myself behind the walls, lie down close to the doors, or in front of the stove. Everywhere, everywhere the furies find me. Overmastered by terror, I fly in panic from everything and nothing, from room to room, and finish by crouching down on the balcony. The grey-yellow light of dawn begins to break, the sepia-coloured clouds assume fantastic and monstrous shapes, which increase my despair. I repair to my friend's studio, lie down on the carpet, and close my eyes. After barely five minutes' quiet, a rustle awakes me. A mouse looks at me and seems to wish to come nearer. I drive it away; it comes back with another one. Good Heavens! Have I got delirium tremens, though I have been quite temperate the last three years? (In the daytime I find that there are really mice in the studio. It was a coincidence, then, but who caused it, and what is his object?) I change my place, and lie down on the hall carpet. Merciful sleep descends upon my tortured spirit, and for about half an hour I lose consciousness of my sufferings. Then a distinct cry "Alp!" makes me suddenly start up. "Alp!" That is the German for nightmare. "Alp" is the word which the rainstorm caused to be formed on my paper in the Hôtel Orfila. Who uttered that cry? No one, for the whole house is asleep. Is it a devil's game? That is a poetical expression which perhaps contains the whole truth.
I mount the steps to my attic. The candles have burnt to their sockets; deep silence reigns. The Angelus rings out. It is the day of the Lord. I open my breviary and read "De Profundis clamavi ad Te, Domine!" That comforts me, and I sink down on the bed like a corpse.
July26th, Sunday.—A cyclone devastates the Jardin des Plantes. The papers contain items which I find especially interesting. To-day, Andrée's balloon is to ascend for its voyage to the North Pole, but the occasion is not propitious. The storm has hurled down several balloons, which have ascended at various points, and killed many aeronauts.
The next morning I leave Dieppe, uttering a benediction on the house, over whose well-deserved happiness my sadness had cast a shadow.
Since I do not wish to believe in the interference of supernatural powers, I imagine that I am the victim of a nervous illness. Accordingly, I make up my mind to go to Sweden and see a physician who is a friend of mine.
As a memorial of Dieppe, I take a piece of iron-ore which has a trefoil shape like a Gothic window, and is marked with the sign of a Maltese cross. A child has found it on the shore, and tells me that these stones fall from the sky and are cast by the waves on the land. I believe him willingly, and keep the gift as a talisman, the significance of which is hidden from me. (On the coast of Brittany the coast-dwellers are accustomed after storms to collect stones shaped like crosses, with a gold-like shimmer. These stones are called "staurolites.")
The little town to which I now betook myself lies in the extreme south of Sweden, on the seacoast. It is an old pirates' and smugglers' haunt, in which exotic traces of all parts of the world have been left by various voyagers. My doctor's house looks like a Buddhist cloister. The four wings of the one-storeyed house form a quadrangle, in the centre of which the dome-shaped wood-shed resembles the tomb of Tamerlane at Samarcand. The style of which the roof is built and faced with Chinese bricks recalls the Farther East. An apathetic tortoise crawls over the pavement and disappears in a Nirvana of innumerable weeds. In the garden is a pagoda-shaped summer-house completely overgrown by clematis.
In the whole of this cloister, with its countless rooms, there lives only one person, the director of the district hospital. He is a widower, solitary and independent, and from the hard discipline of life has derived that strong and noble contempt of men which leads to a deep knowledge of the vanity of all things, oneself included.
The entrance of this man into my life occurred in such an unexpected manner, that I am inclined to assign it to the dramatic skill of aDeus ex machina.
At our first greeting, on my arrival from Dieppe, he looks at me inquiringly, and suddenly asks, "You have a nervous illness! Good! But that is not all. You look so strange that I do not recognise you. What have you been after? Dissipation, crime, lost illusions, religion? Tell me, old fellow!"
But I tell him nothing special, for my first thought is one of suspicion. He is prejudiced against me, has made inquiries about me in some quarter, and wants to have me confined. I tell him about my sleeplessness, nervousness, and bad dreams, and then we talk of other things.
In my room my attention is arrested by the American bed, with its four legs topped by four brass balls, which look like the conductors of an electric machine. Add to this an elastic mattress with copper springs, resembling Ruhmkorff induction coils, and one can easily imagine my rage at this diabolical coincidence. Besides, it is impossible to ask for another bed, as I might be suspected of being mad. In order to assure myself that nothing is concealed above me, I mount into the loft overhead. There is only one object there, but it drives me almost to desperation. An enormous wire-net rolled together stands immediately over my bed. One could not wish for a better accumulator. If there is a thunderstorm, such as is frequent here, the wire network will attract the lightning, and I shall be lying on the conductor. But I do not venture to say a word.
The first thing that disturbs me is the noise of a machine. Since I have quitted the Hôtel Orfila I have a roaring in my ears like the sound of a water-wheel. Doubting the objective existence of this noise, I ask the cause of it, and learn that it is the printing-press close by. The explanation is plausible, and, though little satisfied, I do not wish to excite myself.
The dreaded night comes on. The sky is covered with clouds; the air is close; we expect a thunderstorm. I do not venture to lie down to sleep, and write letters for two hours. At last, overcome with weariness, I undress myself and creep into bed. The lamp is extinguished; a terrible stillness reigns in the house. I feel that someone is watching me in the darkness, touches me and feels for my heart in order to suck my blood. Without waiting any longer, I spring out of bed, fling open the window and jump into the courtyard—but I have forgotten the rose-bushes, whose sharp thorns pierce me through my night-shirt. Scratched and streaming with blood, I grope about the courtyard. Gravel-stones, thistles, and nettles lacerate my feet; unknown objects trip me up. At last I reach the kitchen, which adjoins the doctor's sitting-room. I knock. No answer. Suddenly I discover that it is raining all the time. O misery of miseries! What have I done to deserve these tortures? It is hell. Miserere! Miserere!
I knock repeatedly. It is strange that no one is at hand when I am attacked. Always this solitude! Does it not point to a plot against me in which all are implicated?
At last I hear the doctor's voice, "Who is there?"
"It is I: I am ill. Open, or I die!"
He opens the door. "What is the matter?"
I begin my report by giving an account of the attack in the Rue de la Clef, which I ascribe to enemies, who persecute me by means of electricity.
"Stop, unhappy man! Your mind is affected!"
"The devil it is! Test my intelligence; read what I write daily and what is printed——"
"Stop! not a word to anyone! These stories of electricity are frequent in asylum reports."
"All the better! I care so little for your asylum reports that in order to clear the matter up, I am willing to be examined to-morrow in the asylum at Lund."
"Then you are lost! Not a word more now! Lie down and sleep."
I refuse to do so, and insist on his hearing me; he refuses to listen.
When I am alone, I ask myself, "Is it possible that my friend, an honourable man, who has always kept aloof from dirty transactions, at the close of a blameless career should succumb to temptation? But who has tempted him?" I have no answer to this question, but many surmises. "Every man has his price," says the proverb, but a large sum must have been necessary to bribe this strong character. But one does not pay very highly for an ordinary piece of revenge. Therefore he must have a strong interest in the matter himself. Stop! I have it! I have made gold; the doctor has half-accomplished it also, although, when asked, he denies having repeated the experiments regarding which I had corresponded with him. He denies it, and yet as I stepped across the pavement of the courtyard last evening I found proofs that he had been experimenting. Therefore he is lying. Moreover, in conversation the same evening, he enlarged on the sad consequences which the possible manufacture of gold would entail upon mankind. Universal bankruptcy, universal confusion, anarchy, ruin. "One would have to kill the discoverer of the process," he concluded.
Moreover, I know the fairly modest private means of my friend. I am astonished to hear him speak of his intended purchase of the ground on which his dwelling stands. He is in debt, must even economise, and yet means to be a landowner. Everything combines to render me suspicious of my good friend.
Grant that I am suffering from persecution-mania, but what smith forges the links of these hellish syllogisms?
"The discoverer would have to be killed." This is the thought with which my mental torment subsides into sleep about the time of sunrise.
We have commenced a cold-water cure. I have changed my room, and have fairly quiet nights now, although not without relapses.
One evening the doctor sees the breviary lying on my table, and becomes angry and excited. "Always this religion! That is also a symptom, don't you know?"
"Or a necessity like other necessities!"
"Enough! I am no atheist, but I think the Almighty does not wish to be addressed in such intimate terms as formerly. These flatteries of the Deity belong to the past, and personally I agree with the Mohammedans, who only ask for the gift of resignation in order to support the burden Destiny imposes upon them with dignity."
Significant words, from which I extract some grains of gold for myself. He carries away my breviary and Bible, and says: "Read indifferent matters of secondary interest, world histories, or mythologies, and leave idle dreaming. Above all things, beware of occultism, that caricature of science. It is forbidden to us to spy out the Creator's secrets, and woe to them who seek to do so!"
On my objecting that the occultists in Paris form a whole body by themselves, he only says, "All the worse for them." In the evening he brings me, without any ulterior purpose, I am sure, Victor Rydberg'sGerman Mythology.
"Here is something to send you to sleep, standing. It is better than sulphonal."
If my good friend had known what a spark he was throwing into a keg of powder, he would rather——
TheMythologywhich he put into my hands is in two volumes, has altogether a thousand pages, and opens, so to speak, of itself. My eyes are arrested by the following lines which are imprinted in letters of fire on my memory:—"As the legend relates, Bhrign, having out-grown his father's teaching, became so conceited, that he believed he could surpass his teacher. The latter sent him into the underworld where, in order to humble him, he had to witness countless terrible things, of which he had never had a conception."
That means: "My conceit, my pride, my ὕβρις, has been punished by my father and teacher. And I am in hell, driven thither by the powers. And who is my teacher? Swedenborg."
I turn over more leaves of this wonderful book: "One may compare with this the German myth of the fields of thorns which tear the feet of the unrighteous."
Enough! Enough! Thorns, too! That is too much! No doubt of it—I am in hell! And in fact, real occurrences support this idea so powerfully, that I must at last believe it.
The doctor seems to me to be struggling with conflicting emotions. At one time he seems prejudiced against me, looks at me contemptiously, and treats me with humiliating rudeness; at another he seems himself unhappy, and soothes and comforts me as though I were a sick child. But then, again, it seems to give him pleasure to be able to trample under his feet a man of worth for whom he has formerly had a high regard. Then he lectures me like a pitiless tormentor. I am to work, but not to give way to exaggerated ambition; I am to fulfil my duties to my fatherland and family: "Leave chemical speculations alone," he says; "they are a chimera. There are so many specialists, authorities, and professional scientists well versed in their own branches."
One day he proposes to me to write for the newest Stockholm society paper. A fine idea, indeed! I answer him that I do not require to write for the newest Stockholm paper, since the leading paper of Paris and of the whole world has accepted my manuscripts. Then he plays the incredulous, and treats me as a braggart, although he has read my articles in theFigaro, and has himself translated my first one inGil Blas.
I am not angry with him; he only plays the rôle assigned to him by Providence. I forcibly suppress the growing hatred which I feel towards this unexpected tormentor, and curse the fate which changes what might have been thankfulness towards a generous friend into unnatural ingratitude.
Trifling occurrences ceaselessly arouse my suspicions regarding the doctor's evil intentions. To-day he has deposited in the garden verandah an entirely new set of axes, saws, and hammers. What does he want with them? In his sleeping-room are two guns and a revolver, and in a corridor a collection of axes which are much too heavy for merely domestic purposes. What a Satanic coincidence that I should have these implements of execution and torture before my eyes! For I cannot explain to myself what they mean, and why they are there. My nights now pass fairly quietly, while the doctor has taken to roaming about at night. Once at midnight I am startled by the sudden report of a gun. Out of politeness I pretend not to have heard it. The next morning he explains that a covey of woodpeckers had flown into the garden and disturbed his sleep. Another time, at two o'clock at night, I hear the hoarse voice of the house-keeper, and on another occasion I hear the doctor sigh and groan and invoke "the Lord." Is this house haunted? Who has brought me here?
I cannot suppress a smile when I see how the nightmare with which I have been oppressed now takes possession of my gaoler. But my malicious joy is promptly punished. I have a terrible nervous attack. My heart seems to stop beating, and I hear two words, which I have noted in my diary. An unknown voice calls out, "Luthardt: Druggist." Druggist! Are they slowly poisoning me with alkaloids such as hyoscyamin, hashish, digitalis, and stramonin, which cause delirium?
I don't know, but from that time my suspicion is doubled. They do not dare to murder me, but they are trying to drive me mad by artificial means, in order to make me disappear in an asylum. Appearances are stronger and stronger against the doctor. I find out that he has discovered my process of making gold, and that perhaps he knew it before I did. Everything which he says contradicts itself the next moment, and when confronted by a liar my imagination takes the bit between its teeth and rushes beyond all reasonable bounds.
On the morning of the 8th of August I go for a walk before the town. On the high road a telegraph post is humming: I step up to it, lay my ear on it, and listen as if bewitched. At the foot of the post there lies by chance a horse-shoe. I pick it up and carry it away as an omen of good luck.
August10th.—The behaviour of the doctor during the last few days has disquieted me more than ever. By his strange aspect I see that he has struggled with himself; his face is pale; his eyes seem dead. During the whole day he sings or whistles; a letter which he has received has excited him much.
In the afternoon he comes home with bloody hands from an operation, and brings a two months' old fœtus with him. He looks like a butcher, and talks in a hateful way: "Let them kill the weak, and protect the strong! Down with pity, for it degrades men." I hear him with alarm, and secretly watch him, after we have wished each other good-night on the threshold which divides our rooms. First of all, he goes in the garden, but I cannot hear what he does. Then he steps into the verandah adjoining my sleeping-room and stops there. He busies himself with some fairly heavy object, and winds up a piece of clock-work which, however, belongs to no clock. Half-undressed, I await, standing motionless, the result of these mysterious preparations.
Then once more the well-known electric fluid streams through the wall on my bed, seeks my breast, and under it, my heart. The tension increases: I seize my clothes, slip through the window, and do not dress till I am outside the house. There I am again in the street, on the pavement, my last refuge and only friend behind me! I wander onward without a definite aim; but when I come to myself I go direct to the chief physician of the town. I have to ring and wait, and prepare what to say so as not to injure my friend.
At last the doctor appears. I excuse myself for paying such an untimely visit on the plea of sleeplessness, palpitations, and want of confidence in my own doctor, who, I said, treated me as a hypochondriac and would not listen to me. The doctor invites me inside, as though he had been expecting me, asks me to take a seat, and offers me a cigar and a glass of wine. I breathe freely at finding myself once more treated as a respectable man, and not a wretched idiot. We chat for two hours, and the doctor turns out to be a theosophist to whom I can tell everything, without compromising myself. At last about midnight I rise in order to find an hotel; the doctor, however, advises me to return home.
"Never! he is capable of murdering me!"
"But if I accompany you?"
"Then, indeed, we should meet the enemy's fire together. But he would never forgive me!"
"All the same, let us venture."
So I return to the house. The door is shut, and I knock. When my friend enters after a minute, it is I who am seized with compassion, he, the surgeon, who is accustomed to witness suffering without emotion, he, the advocate of deliberate murder, is an object of pity indeed. He is pale as death, trembles, stammers, and at the sight of the doctor standing behind me seems on the point of collapse, so that I feel more panic-struck than ever. Is it conceivable that this man intended a murder and now feared detection? No, it is not; I reject the thought; it is wicked. After insignificant and on my part really ridiculous remarks, we go to our bedrooms.
There occur in life such terrible incidents that the mind refuses to retain the memory of them for a moment, but the impression remains and becomes irresistibly alive again. Thus there comes to my mind something which took place in the doctor's waiting-room during my night visit. He went to fetch wine; left alone I contemplated a cupboard with carved panels of walnut or alderwood, I forget which. As usual, the veins in the wood formed figures in my imagination. Among them I saw in lively presentment a head with a goat's beard, and immediately turned my back upon it. It was Pan in person, as depicted by the ancients and as metamorphosed later into the Devil of the Middle Ages. I content myself by noting the fact; the owner of the cupboard, the doctor, would be doing occult sciences a great service if he would allow the panel to be photographed. In theInitiationfor November, 1896, Dr. Marc Haven has treated of this phenomenon, which is common in all the kingdoms of nature, and I recommend the reader to regard attentively the face on the shell of the tortoise.
After this adventure, open hostility breaks out between my friend and me. He gives me to understand that I am an idler, and that my presence is superfluous. To this I rejoin that I must wait for the arrival of important letters, but that I am ready at any time to go to an hotel. He now plays the rôle of the injured party. As a matter of fact, I cannot leave for want of money. For the rest, I anticipate that a turning-point in my destiny is at hand. My health is now restored again; I sleep quietly and work diligently. The wrath of Providence seems to have spent itself, for my exertions are crowned with success in all quarters. If I take a book at haphazard out of the doctor's library, it always gives the explanation I was looking for. Thus I find in an old chemical treatise the secret of my process for making gold, and I can now prove by metallurgic calculations and analogies that I have made gold, and that gold has always been obtained when one has gone to work in the same way. An essay on matter which I have written and sent to a French review is immediately published. I show the article to the doctor, who betrays his annoyance, since he cannot deny the fact. Then I say to myself, "How can that man be my friend, who is vexed at mysuccess?"
August12th.—I buy an album at the book-shop. It is a kind of note-book with a gilt leather cover. The design on it attracts my attention, and constitutes, strange as it may sound, a kind of prophecy, the interpretation of which will appear in the sequel. It is as follows: On the left is the waxing moon in the first quarter, surrounded by a branch in blossom; three horses' heads (trijugum) project from the moon; above is a branch of laurel; beneath three pillars; on the right hand, a bell out of which flowers appear; a wheel like a sun, etc.
August13th.—The day announced by the clock on the Boulevard St. Michel has arrived. I wait for something to happen, but in vain; none the less. I am certain that somewhere something is happening, the result of which I shall hear in a short time.
August14th.—On the street I pick up a leaf out of an old office calendar; in large type there is printed on it "August 13th" (the same date which was on the clock). Underneath in smaller type is a sentence, "Do nothing secretly which thou canst not do also openly."
August15th.—A letter from my wife. She bewails my lot; she still loves me, and with our child is waiting for a change in the melancholy situation. Her parents, who formerly hated me, are full of sympathy for my sufferings, and what is more, they invite me to visit my little angel of a daughter, who lives with her grandparents in the country. That calls me back to life. My child, my daughter is more than my wife. Only to think of embracing the harmless, innocent creature, whom I wished to injure,[1]to ask her forgiveness, to brighten her life by little paternal attentions, after having longed for years to show the love which has been repressed! I live again, wake up as if out of a long bad dream, and revere the stern will of the Lord, whose hard but wise hand has smitten me. "Blessed is he whom God chastens." Blessed, for he does not trouble about others.
While it is still uncertain whether I shall meet my wife on the Danube, a matter to which, because of an undefined grudge against her, I am quite indifferent, I prepare for my pilgrimage, perfectly aware that it is a penance, and that new mortifications await me.
After thirty days of misery, at last the doors of my torture-chamber open. I part from my friend—my executioner—without bitterness. He has only been the scourge in the hand of Providence. Behold, blessed is the man whom the Lord chasteneth.
[1]See above, page 38.
[1]See above, page 38.
In Berlin, I drive from the Stettin to the Anhalt Station. The half-hour's drive becomes a real way of thorns for me, so many are the memories which painfully revive in me. At first we pass through the street in which my friend Popoffsky, as an unknown, but yet misunderstood, man fought his first battles with poverty and passion. Now his wife and child are both dead; they died in this house on the left; and our friendship has turned into bitter hatred.
Here, on the right, are the restaurants frequented by artists and authors, the scenes of so many intellectual and erotic orgies. Here is the Cantina Italiana, where I used to meet with my fiancée three years ago, and where the first honorarium I received from Italy was spent in Chianti. There is the Schiffbauerdamm with the Pension Fulda, which we lived in when a young married pair. Here is my theatre, my book-seller, my tailor, my chemist.
What unhappy instinct leads the cabman to drive me through thisvia dolorosafull of buried memories, which at this late hour of the night rise again like ghosts? Why does he choose just the street in which is the restaurant, the "Black Pig," well known as a favourite resort of Heine and E.T.A. Hoffmann? The restaurant keeper himself stands on the steps under the grotesque sign-board. He looks at me without recognition. For a second the candelabrum within darts coloured rays through the numerous bottles in the window, and makes me live again a year of my life which abounded in grief and joy, friendship and love. At the same time, I feel keenly that it is all over, and must be buried to make place for something new.
I spent the night in Berlin. The next morning a deep rose-red flush in the East greeted me over the roofs. I remember having seen this rosy colour in Malmö on the evening of my departure. I leave Berlin, my second home, where I have spent my "second spring," that is, my last. At the Anhalt Station, full of these memories, I give up all hope of the renewal of a spring and a love which can never return.
After a night in Tabor, whither the rosy glow followed me, I travel through the Bohemian mountains to the Danube. There the railway ends, and I traverse the Danube plain, which extends to Grein, in a carriage. We pass between orchards of apple and pear trees, cornfields and green meadows. At last, on a hill on the other side of the river, I discover the little church in which I never was, but which I know well as the central point of the landscape which extends before the house where my child was born. It is now two years since that unforgettable month of May. I pass through villages and convents; along the road there rise innumerable penitential chapels, hills crowned with crucifixes, votive pictures, monuments, reminding one of accidents and sudden deaths by lightning, and in other ways. At the end of my pilgrimage there certainly await me the twelve stations of the Cross. Every hundred paces the Crucified meets me with His crown of thorns, and instils into me courage to bear scourging and crucifixion. I painfully convince myself beforehand, thatshe, as I might have known, will not be there. Now, since my wife can no more divert the domestic storm, I must expect tit-for-tat from the old parents, whom I left under unpleasant circumstances, though against my will. I come accordingly for the sake of peace to be punished, and when I have passed the last village and the last crucifix, my feelings are something like those of a condemned man awaiting execution.
I had left an infant six weeks old, and I found a little girl of two and a half. She turned on me a searching look, but not one of dislike, as though she wished to find out whether I had come for her own or her mother's sake. After she had assured herself of the former, she let herself be embraced, and put her little arms round my neck. I am in a mood like Faust's when he exclaims, "the earth has me again," but more tender and purer. I am delighted in taking the little one on my arm, and feeling her heart beat against mine. Love for a child turns a man into a woman; it is sexless and heavenly, as Swedenborg says. This is the beginning of my education for heaven. But I have not yet done penance enough.
Briefly put, the situation is as follows: My wife is staying with her married sister, for her grandmother, who is in possession of the family property, has vowed that our marriage shall be dissolved, so intensely does she hate me, on account of my ingratitude and other matters. So I with my child remain as a welcome guest of my mother-in-law, and contentedly accept the hospitality offered me, under present circumstances, for an indefinite time. My mother-in-law, with the placable and submissive mind of a deeply religious woman, has forgiven me all.
September1st.—I occupy the room in which my wife has spent her two years of separation. Here she has suffered, while I suffered in Paris. Poor, poor woman! Are we so severely punished, because we have trifled with love?
During the evening meal the following incident happens. In order to help my little daughter, who cannot yet help herself, I touch her hand quite gently and kindly. The child utters a cry, draws her hand back, and casts at me a glance full of alarm. When her grandmother asks what is the matter, she answers, "He hurts me." In my confusion I am unable to utter a word. How many persons have I deliberately hurt, and hurt still, though without intending it. At night I dream of an eagle which tears at my hand for some unknown crime.
In the morning my daughter visits me; her manner is gentle and coaxing. She drinks coffee with me, and remains standing by my writing-table while I show her pictures. We are already good friends, and my mother-in-law is glad that she has someone to help her in educating the little one. In the evening I accompany her going to bed, and hear her prayers. She is a Catholic, and when she bids me pray and make the sign of the cross, I remain silent, for I am a Protestant.
September2nd.—Everything is in confusion. My mother-in-law's mother, who lives not far from here on the bank of the stream, intends to have an expulsion order made out against me. She wants me to go at once, and threatens if I disobey to disinherit her daughter. My mother-in-law's sister, a good woman, who is separated from her husband, invites me to stay with her in the neighbouring village till the storm has blown over. She comes herself to fetch me. From the top of a hill about a mile off, one looks into a circular valley, like the crater of a volcano, out of which rise many smaller hills covered with pines. In the middle of this crater lies the village with its church, and above, on a precipitous height, a castle built in the mediæval style; between, lie fields and meadows watered by a stream which rushes into a ravine below the castle.
This peculiar and unique landscape makes a strange impression on me, and the thought arises: "I must have seen it somewhere before, but where, where?"
In the zinc bath in the Hôtel Orfila, traced out in oxide of iron! Without question, it is the same landscape!
My aunt goes down with me into the village, where she owns a three-storeyed house. The capacious edifice also contains a baker's and butcher's shop, and a restaurant. It has a lightning-conductor, because the store was a year ago struck by lightning. When my good aunt, who is as rigidly religious as her sister, conducts me to the room assigned for my use, I remain fixed on the threshold as if arrested by a vision. The walls are painted a rose-colour, which reminds me of the flush of the dawns which accompanied me on my journey. The curtains are also rose-coloured, and the windows so full of flowers that the daylight is subdued by them. Everything is spotlessly clean, and the bed with its canopy supported by four pillars is like that of a maiden. The whole room with its appurtenances is a poem, and speaks of a soul which only half lives upon earth. The Crucified is not there, but the Blessed Virgin is, and a vessel of holy water guards the entrance against evil spirits.
A feeling of shame seizes me, and I fear to sully the ideal of a pure heart which has erected this temple to the Virgin over the grave of her only love, who has been dead ten years, and in confusion I attempt to decline the kindly offer. But the good lady insists: "It will do you good, if you sacrifice your earthly love to the love of God, and of your child. Believe me, this thornless love will preserve your peace of mind and cheerfulness of spirit, and under the protection of the Virgin you will sleep quietly."
I kiss her hand as a sign of gratitude for her sacrifice, and consent with a feeling of humility of which I had not thought myself capable. The powers seem to be gracious to me, and to have arranged the sufferings they have ordained for my improvement. Still, for some reason or other, I wish to sleep another night in Saxen, and put off my change of residence till the next day. So I return with my aunt to my child. Looking at the house from the street, I discover that the lightning-conductor is fastened exactly above my bed.
What an infernal coincidence! It makes me think again that I am the subject of a personal persecution. I also notice that my window commands a pleasant prospect, looking out as it does on a poorhouse occupied by released criminals and sick people, among whom several are dying. A sorry spectacle truly, to have continually before one's eyes!
In Saxen I pack my things and prepare for departure. I part with sorrow from my child, who has become so dear to me. The cruelty of the old woman, who has succeeded in separating me from wife and child, enrages me. Angrily I shake my fist against a painting of her which hangs over my bed, and utter an imprecation against her. Two hours later a terrible storm breaks over the village. One lightning flash succeeds another, the rain pours in torrents, the sky is pitch dark.
The next day I am in Klam, where the rose-coloured room awaits me. Over my aunt's house there hangs a cloud in the shape of a dragon. They tell me that a house quite close by has been struck by lightning, and that the torrents of rain have injured haystacks and carried away bridges.
On the 10th of September a cyclone has devastated Paris, and that under most extraordinary circumstances. Without any warning, it suddenly rises behind St. Sulpice in the Jardin de Luxembourg, grazes the Théâtre du Châlet and the police station, and disappears behind the St. Louis hospital, after it has torn up iron gratings for fifty yards round. Regarding this cyclone and the one in the Jardin des Plantes, my theosophical friend asks me, "What is a cyclone? Is it an ebullition of hatred, the eruption of some passion, the effluence of some spirit?"
It must be a coincidence, or rather, more than a coincidence, that in a letter which crosses his, I have asked him as one initiated in the occult doctrines of the Hindus, "Can the philosophers of Hindustan cause cyclones?"
I began to suspect the adepts in magic of persecuting me on account of my gold-making or my obstinacy, and of wishing to bring me in complete subjection to their society. In theGerman Mythologyof Rydberg and inWärend och Widarneof Hilten-Cavallius, I had read that witches were in the habit of appearing in a storm or in short and violent gusts of wind. I mention this to show my mental condition before I fell in with Swedenborg's teaching.
The sanctuary shines in white and rose, and the saint will soon join his disciple, who summons him from their common fatherland in order to revive the memory of the man who was more highly equipped with spiritual gifts than any born of woman in these modern times. France sent Anskar[1]in the early middle ages to baptise Sweden; a thousand years later Sweden sent Swedenborg to re-baptise France by means of his disciple Saint-Martin. The Martinist orders, who know the rôle they have to play in the founding of a new France, will not undervalue the purport of these words, and still less the significance of the above-mentioned millennium.